< 



I 






CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 



AND THE 



DISCOVERY OF THE NEW WORLD. 




CMMISTOFHIBR C0I.ITMB1US. 



Christopher Columbus 



AND THE 



DISCO\ERY OF THE NEW WORLD 



BV THE 



t/ 



MARQuf^'^DK BhLLOV 



Ti-anslated by R. .S^j&ww+e.v 

WITH SIX ETCHINGS AND FIFTY-ONE ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD 



UESIGNHD and E\'GRA\1:1) BV Ll:OPOLD FlAMHXG 




^m-^:--^--::'' 



/ 



P H I L AI) H L P H I A 

Gebbie & Barrie, Publishers 

1878 

LEG 




,5va. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year iSyj, by CEBB!E ^ BARRIL. 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



&€) 



GltANT, FAIHES rf RODGEIiS, 

EU-.ctrotypers aud PrhUfra, 
Philadelphia. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 
PARENTAGE FAMILY EARLY ADVENTURES, 9 



CHAPTER II. 
EDUCATION MARRIAGE LEAVES LISBON, 2$ 

CHAPTER III. 

REPEATED FAILURES FINAL SUCCESS, 43 

CHAPTER IV. 

FIRST VOYAGE ITS INCIDENTS, 6$ 

CHAPTER V. 

OCCUPATION OF SAN SALVADOR AND OTHER ISLANDS, .... 89 

CHAPTER VI. 

F-URTHER DISCOVERIES SAILS FOR SPAIN, II3 

CHAPTER VII. 

TRIUMPHAL RECEPTION I 35 

CHAPTER VIII. 

AMONG THE CARIES 155 

CHAPTER IX. 

A PRISONER 177 

CHAPTER X. 

LAST VOYAGE DEATH, 197 



LIST OF ENGRAVINGS. 



ETCHINGS. 

J PORTRAIT OF COLUMBUS, FrolltlspiccC. 

4 AT THE MONASTERY GATE, PAGE 47 

i> BEFORE THE JUNTA, . 5 I 

. THE DEPARTURE FROM PALOS, 6j 

J^THE discoverer's WELCOME I45 

X COLUMBUS PROTECTING HIS HOSTAGES, I74 



WOOD. 

-^ GENOA, 9 

- THE PROPHETIC VISION, I7 

-THE SHIPWRECK OFF CAPE ST. VINCENT, 21 

-- THE QUAY OF LISBON, 25 

-> THE Y'EARS OF PREPARATION, 27 

COLUMBUS BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF STATE, 34 

■ FATHER AND SON, 37 

THE PARTING BENEDICTION 4O 

THE GENIUS OF HISTORY 43 

IN THE ROYAL PRESENCE, 46 

JUAN PEREZ DE MARCHENA, . 48 

ISABELLA AT THE SIEGE OF MALAGA 53 

THE RETURN TO LA RABIDA, 57 



6 ILLUSTRATIONS ON WOOD. 

PAGE 

■~ THE MIDNIGHT JOURNEY, 59 

• WESTWARD HO ! 6l 

i EMBLEMS OF FAITH AND HOPE, 62 

i THE SURRENDER OF GRENADA, 65 

--THE PHANTOMS OF FEAR, . 7 1 

-ITIIE SEA BISHOP AND THE MERMAIDS, 73 

-^THE DECK OF THE SANTA MARIA, 78 

- THE CONSPIRATORS, Si 

■» TE DEUM, 85 

A. MAKING READY TO LAND, 89 

4 IN THE NAME OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST FOR THE CROWN OF CASTILE, 93 

i PULLING BACK lOO 

-" FIGHTING THE IGUANA IO4 

■> A SAVAGE ARCADIA IO8 

■ ALONZO PINZON, • I 1 3 

-^ THE FLOWER OF GOLD, . . . . . . • • • •117 

^ THE GRATEFUL CACIQUE, 119 

i THE WRECKERS AND THEIR PREY, 125 

, COLUMBUS BEFORE THE SOVEREIGNS OF PORTUGAL, 1 3O 

4 THE JIEETING WITH FATHER MARCHENA, . . . . . . . I3I 

xTHE PRIEST AT HIS WINDOW, 1 35 

^ COLUMBUS AND JUAN PEREZ, , '4° 

.J THE PROGRESS THROUGH BARCELONA, 143 

.FAREWELL TO HAPPINESS, '5 I 

.THE DEPARTURE FROM CADIZ '55 

^ A HORRIBLE DISCOVERY 160 

THE SICK BED, '7° 

THE DEATH OF CAONABO, . . . ^73 

THE CHAIN OF GOLD '^77 



184 

- BARTHOLOMEW COLUMBUS, 



THE TIDAL WAVE, 

187 

-columbus in fetters, '94 

-hooted by the mob "97 

^ the welcome of the queen 202 

the eclipse, . ^°9 

the death of columbus " " 

alas! the chaplet, 2'7 



CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 




fci^ A French author, who was perhaps too strong a 
'^ Frenchman, has tried to prove that the family of 
Christopher Columbus was of French descent. Such a patriotic as- 
sertion I have no wish to contradict; it even seems to me plausible; 
but I am bound to confess that no writer of authority has given it 
his support. 

However this may be, our hero's family had long been setded 

in the .State of Genoa at the time of his birth. He was the eldest 

9 



lo CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

son of Dominic Columbus, a manufacturer of silk goods; his mother's 
maiden name was Susanna Fontanarossa. He had three younger 
brothers, Bartholomew and James (Giacomo), who figure prominently 
in the history of his life, and Pellegrino, wlio followed his father's 
business, and died young. Columbus had also a sister, ot whom wc 
know nothing but that she married a dealer in potted meats {charailicr) 
named Giacomo Bavarello. 

Both the time and the place of Columbus' birth have given occa- 
sion to long and learned discussions. Whatever doubt may attach 
to the former, we must accept as to the latter the testimony of Co- 
lumbus himself in his will. In this authentic and carefully worded 
document, he solemnly declares himself born at Genoa, of Genoese 
parents. In spite of this formal declaration, a number of cities and 
villages, both in the Montferrat and Plaisantin districts, and in the 
Riviera of Genoa, still dispute for the honor of his birth. The mari- 
time village of Gogoleto or Cogoreto, a little way from Genoa, shows 
with pride the hovel where he first saw the light. But the best 
writers have finished, where they might better have begun, by agreeing 
with Columbus himself in fixing his birth in the city of Genoa, about 
the year 1436. 

The situation of his family was at this time neither so humble nor 
altogether so impoverished as might be inferred from some ot the 
preceding details. Though reduced in circumstances, they belonged 
to the noblesse. Of this there are many proofs. It is well known, 
moreover, that in most of the Italian Republics, republics at once 
mercantile and warlike, no labor, whether of brain, eye or hand, was 
regarded with the slightest disfavor, if only it were honest and skilful. 
Just as, at Florence, a gentleman could, without derogation from his 
rank, be a silk manufacturer, so at Genoa a cloth maker {tcxlor pan 



HJS PARENTAGE. n 

nontin) could, without exciting surprise, emblazon his coat of arms on 
his shop-front. 

We enter into these details once for all, because Columbus him- 
self attached some importance to them, even at a time ot his life when 
his noble birth could add nothing to his popularity and good fortune. 
In a letter to the nurse of the little Don Juan, he says in reference 
to Colon el Mozo, reputed to be his relation, "Let them call me what 
they will, I am not the first Admiral of my family. David the wise 
king kept sheep, and afterwards he was King of Jerusalem. I serve 
the same God who exalted David." 

Later, Ferdinand, in the life which he wrote of his illustrious father, 
was a little less positive. It was enough for him that Columbus was 
the greatest admiral -in the world; and while confessing that his rela- 
tionship with El Mozo had not been authentically proved, he added, 
"I think there is more glory for us in descending from the Admiral 
our father, than in inquiring whether our grandfather kept a shop." 

However this may be, Dominic owned two houses in Genoa, whose 
location is well known, and in one of which we have every reason to 
believe that his eldest son was born. He had also a litde landed 
patrimony in the valley of the Nura, and several small properties in 
the neighborhood of Ouinto. He was able, therefore, to give his sons 
a rudimentary education, without which the eldest could never have 
conceived the idea of his immortal enterprise, nor the two younger 
have rendered him such effectual assistance. 

Let us add here, for our readers' satisfaction, that the good father 
lived long enough to rejoice in the glorious result of these early 
years of training ; a result more magnificent, no doubt, than he had 
ever dreamed of, but due in great part to his judicious aftection. 

We must not suppose that the instruction received by the young 



,2 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

Columbus was more than rudimentary ; but by the variety of the ob- 
jects with which it dealt it gave rein to every strong predilection, 
and especially to that which early showed itself in him. Thus, in 
the city of his birth, he was taught, together with reading, writing and 
arithmetic, the first principles of drawing and painting, which served 
liim well in later life in the preparation of geographic charts. At 
the University of Pavia, to which he was sent at the age of nine, he 
learned the Latin tongue, one of the two great keys to knowledge; 
Aristode's physics, which then were taught as Natural Philosophy ; 
and under the name of Astrology, he was instructed in surveying, in 
all then known of Astronomy, and in the fanciful sciences of prog- 
nostication, of judicial astrology, and of the Cabala. 

To the same class of studies, over which he passed but slightly, 
belonged also Geometry. Columbus does not seem to have given to 
this important branch of mathematical science all the attention which 
it deserved. His powerful and active imagination, though united In 
him, as in most of his countrymen, with strong practical good sense, 
was still the ruling power of his youth ; and his^ scholastic pursuits 
were soon abandoned for the adventurous life of a sailor. 

An absorbing passion for the sea will often spring up in a boy's 
mind even when everything opposes his wishes ; we may judge, then, 
how It would take possession of a lad born and brought up In such 
a seaport as Genoa in the fifteenth century. 

Even In our own time, of all the maritime cities of Italy, Genoa, 
seen from the sea, still leaves upon the voyager's mind the most 
lively and lasting impression. Rising like an amphitheatre over one 
of the most beautiful bays In the world, between mountains of noble 
outline and soft coloring, clear-cut between the magic blue ol sea 
and sky, she emerges behind a forest of masts, lifting, story above 



GENOA. 13 

story, her painted houses, her hanging gardens bright with fountains, 
her hght towers and fantastic belfries, and the glory of her marble 
palaces. 

Some part of this magnificence was wanting in Columbus' time. 
The gardens and the palaces belong to a later date. The city was 
more warlike and less luxurious than the Genoa of to-day; but the 
situation of the town, her marble houses, the splendor of her churches, 
her princely wealth, her renown in war and commerce, and the pride 
of her inhabitants, had already won for her the name of Genoa la 
Sziperba. 

She had played a great part in the Crusades ; she disputed suc- 
cessfully with Venice the commerce of the Indies ; she had long 
crushed her rival Pisa, and the young Columbus, before he went to 
Pavia, must often have passed before the doors of the Bank of St. 
George, where are still hung the chains of the port of Pisa, broken 
through by the Genoese fleet. In this same building, too, he must 
often have admired the Griffin of Genoa, grasping in his talons the 
imperial eagle of Frederic and the Pisan fox; and under this em- 
blematical group, have deciphered the motto : 

" Griphus ut has angit 
Sic hostes Genua frangit." 

"As the griffin tears these, so does Genoa break to pieces her 
enemies." 

Yet the day was approaching when the Republic of Genoa, 
abusing her liberty so often won and lost, should be delivered by the 
traitor Ludovico el Moro into the power of France. The senseless 
quarrels and strife of parties which were destined in after days to 
make her indifferent to her son's splendid offer of a new world, could 



,4 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

not, Iiowever, affect the youth of the great discoverer. Perhaps they 
even attracted him, in contrast with the quiet university city of Pavia. 

But deepest of all was the impression made upon the young- 
Columbus by the intense maritime activity of Genoa, and by the glory 
of such naval Commanders and foreign traders as the Dorias, the 
Fieschi, the Balbi, the Brignole, the Grimaldi and the Durazzos. 
Among these imperishable names was that of a certain Francesco 
Columbus, a captain in the naval force of King Louis XI. of France, 
and surnamed the Arch-pirate. Another Columbus, distinguished 
from the first by the appellation of El Mozo (the young) had also 
won renown as a valiant admiral. He was in command of a little 
squadron equipped at his own expense ; and under the Genoese flag, 
but at his own risk, he sailed the sea as far as to Gibraltar, making 
war sometimes on the Barbary coast, sometimes on the Venetian rivals 
of Genoa. His expeditions, men said, had brought him great wealth. 

Such remembrances and such examples, kept alive as they were 
by correspondence with his family, and thrown into brilliant relief by 
his tranquil and studious life in Pavia, doubtless diverted the lad 
from his lessons ; and he had hardly acquired the elements of nauti- 
cal astronomy when he eagerly besought his father's consent to carry 
his knowledge into immediate practice. With this object he returned 
to Genoa, where for some months he partook with his brother Bar- 
tholomew the humble labors of Dominic. 

We may suppose that the opposition of the latter to the project 
of his sons (for Bartholomew shared in his brother's wishes) was 
overcome by the presence at Genoa of one of the illustrious naviga- 
tors named Columbus of whom we have made mention. At all 
events Christopher made his first voyage, at the age of fourteen, under 
the command of the elder Columbus: no small proof of the rela- 



EARLY ADVENTURES. 15 

tionship which the descendants of the Arch-pirate and his nephew 
were one day to claim with such pertinacity. The ilkistrious Admiral 
would have been somewhat amazed, when he took the young Chris- 
topher on board, to hear that he would owe to this recruit the honor 
of being- known to posterity. 

Of their expedition together, and, indeed, of the life of Columbus 
about this time, we know hardly anything. Dates are utterly want- 
ing. We know that in one of his Mediterranean voyages, he received 
a wound so serious that he felt the effects of it even in his old aee. 
He refers to it in a letter dated July 7th, 1503. We know also from 
Columbus himself that he commanded the Genoese galleys off the 
Isle of Cyprus, in a war against Venice. He speaks, too, of a voy- 
age to Chio, in language which gives one a high idea of his powers 
of observation ; while another story shows him to us as crafty and 
adroit as Ulysses. An expedition had been sent to Tunis on behalf 
of King Rene of Anjou, when the Genoese, about 1460, tried to conquer 
Naples from the House of Aragon for their ally John of Calabria. 

" It was my fortune," writes Columbus, " to be sent to Tunis by 
King Rene, whom God hath taken to himself to capture the galley 
Fernandina ; and when I had arrived off the island of San Pietro in 
Sardinia, two ships of war and a carrack were with the galley ; which 
so alarmed my crew that they declared they would go no further, but 
would return to Marseilles for another ship and a larger force of 
men. As I had no means of compelling them, I affected to yield to 
their desires. I changed the points of compass, and hoisted all sail. 
This was the evening ; and on the morrow morning we were off Car- 
thagena, while they all believed themselves on the way to Marseilles." 

We know not in what year Columbus first passed the Straits of 
Gibraltar; but he tells us that before his first voyage of discovery 



1 6 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

he had seen Northern Europe and England, and that he had been 
several times from Lisbon to the Guinea coast. In his Prophecies 
{Profecias) he writes " From the tenderest age have I been upon the 
sea, and to this day have I continued to navigate. Whoever gives 
himself up to the practice of this art must desire to know the secrets 
of nature here below. Whatever voyages have been made by for- 
mer men, I too have made them." 

The longest of these voyages was to Iceland. We shall de- 
scribe this in its place ; but here we may note, in spite of incredulous 
historians, that no suggestion of the existence of a new world could 
have come to Columbus through his Northern expeditions. His 
true glory does not lie in a discovery whose importance and signifi- 
cance he died without clearly comprehending, but in the strength of 
character and of judgment which brought him upon this discovery 
while he was dreaming of another. It was the harmonious balance 
of his qualities, the union in him of all the elements of greatness, 
which has secured for Columbus his place in history. 

He was withal a man of singular humility. In the darkest hours 
of discouragement, he was convinced of ultimate success, and bore 
himself proudly before men ; but he always attributed the conception 
and the execution of his magnificent designs to the inspiration of 
Providence. . In his letters and writings are abundant proofs of his 
piety. Like the Maid of Orleans, the son of the Genoese artisan 
had visions and prophetic dreams ; like her he heard celestial voices 
calling him to a great work ; and as Joan, when she crowned Charles 
VII. in the Cathedral of Rheims, restored the unity of France, so did 
Columbus, when he bound together the Old World and the New, re- 
store the unity of mankind. 

His great discovery always presented itself to him as a religious 




THE PROPHETIC VISION 



HIS PORTRAITS. 19 

mission. This we know both from his writings and from contemporary 
accounts. A cogent and picturesque proof is the sketch preserved 
in the Royal Palace at Genoa, and said to be from the pen of Co- 
lumbus himself This sketch of a painting or of a fresco represents 
in allegory the departure of Columbus for the new world. The hero 
is seated upon a car with great paddle-wheels, which beat against an 
angry sea. At his side, pointing out and opening the way, is Provi- 
dcnce ; Religion urges his chariot through the waves ; Ignorance and 
Envy strive to hold it back. Each figure has an explanatory inscrip- 
tion, and the sketch bears the emblematic mark which Columbus used 
as a signature, and in which the etymology of Christopher is made as 
striking as possible. 

So is it in the famous map of the New World drawn in 1 500 by 
Juan de la Cosa of Biscay, the companion of Columbus. At the top 
of this inestimable record the patron saint of Columbus is repre- 
sented, according to the legend, bearing the infant Jesus on his shoul- 
ders across the waters. A learned writer, to whom the history of 
Portugal, of Spain, and of the New World is deeply indebted, M. 
Ferdinand Denis, is inclined to think that the artist geographer has 
given to the saint the features of the illustrious navigator. This pre- 
sumption is at least plausible; and the likeness in question becomes 
the more interesting, since no other portrait of Columbus is absolutely 
authentic. In fact, these portraits are so unlike each other, that our 
artist, seeking to lose no trait of the original, has been compelled to 
rely chiefly upon the descriptions given by Oviedo, Gomera, Las Casas, 
and more especially by Ferdinand Columbus. 

The first of these says in so many words that " Columbus was a 
well-made man, strong of limb, of a fresh and ruddy complexion, 
spotted here and there with freckles." 



20 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

It appears also from different passages in Gomera and Las Casas 
that " the Admiral " was tall, well made, robust and of noble bearing. 
He had a long face, neither full nor thin ; his complexion was lively, 
inclinino- to red, with a few freckles ; his nose was aquiline ; his cheek- 
bones rather prominent ; his blue-grey eyes kindled quickly. 

" In his youth," says Ferdinand Columbus, " my father had light 
hair ; but before he was thirty, it had become white." 

To these details we may add upon good authority that his fore- 
head was high, his lower lip slightly projecting and his chin dimpled. 
His eye and ear were exceedingly quick, and his sense of smell ex- 
quisitely keen. He loved perfumes ; and even on his campaigns, if 
we trust Oviedo, his linen and his gloves were scented with essences 
and dried flowers. But there his luxury ended. Sober by inclina- 
tion and by habit, Columbus may be added to the list of great men 
who lived chiefly upon vegetables, and preferred water to wine. 

We may add that his taste for simplicity, a taste too often in 
harmony with his straitened circumstances, was united with the most 
scrupulous care of his dress and person, even when he wore the cos- 
tume of an Associate of the Franciscan order. 

This detailed and consistent description is not reproduced in a 
single feature by the extant portraits of Columbus. None of these 
portraits, consequendy, is now regarded as authentic. It is only by 
examininof the original authorities that we can form an idea, and 
attempt to create a likeness of the great navigator. 

We have given in a condensed form all the facts which are cer- 
tainly known about this part of his life, dwelling especially upon what 
he has said himself in his writings. Unfortunately, the details which 
have been preserved to us concerning this period of his lite are few 
and disconnected. Many links in the chain are v^'anting, and dates 



THE SHIPWRECK. 



21 



are very rare. There is nothing, for instance, which enables us to fix 
the time of a military exploit too well authenticated and too interest- 



ing to be omitted here. 





THE SHIPWRECK OFF CAPE ST. VINCENT. 

Columbus, according to the historian Bossi, commanded one of 
the ships of his namesake El Mozo in a cruise off the Portuouese 



22 CHRISTOPHER COfJ'MIU'S. 

coast, when at tiic break of day, between Lisbon and Cape St. Vin- 
cent, appeared four Venetian galleys, returning to Flanders with a rich 
cargo. In spite of the disproportion of forces, Columbus did not 
hesitate to attack them ; and the engagement lasted till night-fall ; 
when the ship to which that of our hero was grappled took fire, and 
in a moment the conflagration became general. Every one escaped 
as best he could. Deserted alike by friend and enemy, Columbus 
sprang into the sea, and by the help of a floating oar which came 
within his reach, succeeded in swimming to shore, two leagues from 
the scene of the conflagration. Succored by charity until he had 
recovered his strength, he determined to go on to Lisbon, where he 
arrived in a state of utter destitution, but where he met his brother 
Bartholomew. For this adventure no credible date is assigned ; and 
we must be content to accept it upon the universal belief of con- 
temporaries, and its strong intrinsic probability. 

We know from authentic documents that he arrived at Lisbon in 
the year 1470. He was now thirty-five; and from this time the de- 
tails of his life become of historic certainty and importance. The 
great idea which had long taken entire possession of him, now regu- 
lated his every action ; and we can no longer separate the man from 
his work. We have been slow in reaching this point ; but it was 
necessary for us to become acquainted with the character of the great 
navigator, and especially with the moral qualities which constitute his 
true grandeur. "Not the suffering," says Tertullian, "but the cause, 
makes the martyr." In the discovery of the New World by Christo- 
pher Columbus we shall find at once the cause, the martyr and the 
crown. 




THE QUAV OF LISBON. 



CHAPTER II. 



In 1470, the year to wlilch we can refer with certainty the arri- 
val of Cokimbus at Lisbon, tliat city was frequented by a great 

number of Italians, tradesmen, mariners, adventurers and artisans of 

25 



26 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

every kind, some of whom had setded there for life. And not they 
only, but all the maritime nations of the Old World had their repre- 
sentatives at Lisbon, as actors or as spectators in the great drama 
of geographical discovery. The world saw, for the first time, nautical 
expeditions set forth under the guidance of scientific knowledge. The 
Portuguese coast, then the most enlightened region in Europe, was 
seething with a mental and material fermentation to which nothincr in 
our day presents any analogy. This throng from every nation was 
gathered together, with some undefined expectation, at a common 
rendezvous; and, like the Hebrews on the shores of the Red Sea, 
were waiting for a new Moses to give the signal of departure. 

It was the place of all others for Columbus. He was in high 
favor with his compatriots, among whom, as we have seen, he had 
found his brother Bartholomew. Their meeting was not fortuitous. 
Although Columbus was naturally attracted by the great maritime 
activity of which Portugal, under the impulse received from Don 
Henriquez, was then the centre, we may suppose that the presence 
of Bartholomew at Lisbon was one reason for his brother's journey 
thither, and certainly decided him to remain there for awhile. Other 
ties, yet dearer, were soon to bind him to Lisbon. Columbus, like 
his brother, was equally skilful as pilot and as draughtsman. To 
these arts he added that of transcribing and illuminating manuscripts. 
His industry and technical knowledge enabled him to dispose to 
advantage both of the originals and of his copies. He was thus 
enabled to eke out a scanty living. 

This pause between the two most active parts of his life enabled 
him to revive and greatly to increase his literary and scientific ac- 
quirements. The extent of these acquirements is indicated in one 
of his last writings. "The Lord," says he in his Prophecies, "hath 



THE YEARS OF PREPARATIOX 



27 



bestowed upon me an abundant knowledge of navigation; of the 
science of tlie stars He hath given me what suffices; so also of geome- 




°^^-'-^.v^ 



THE YEARS OF PREPARATION. 



try and of arithmetic. More than this, He hath granted me wisdom 
and dexterity to draw the spheres, and to put thereupon, in their 
proper places, cities, rivers and mountains." 



28 CHRIS TOP HER COL CMB US. 

He adds finally, and this passage is especially noteworthy : " 1 have 
turned myself to all sorts of studies, to History, Chronicles, Philosophy, 
and other arts of which the Lord hath granted me understanding.'' 

In this he did not exaggerate. He had, for a man of his time, 
an immense knowledge of books ; but it was desultory and discon- 
nected. It appears in all his writings ; in the diffuseness of his style; 
in the naivete of his language, and in the abundance and wealth of 
his imagery. From the quotations scattered through his writings we 
may make out the inventory of his library. We take especial plea- 
sure in finding there the books which prepared and strengthened 
him for his search for those lands in the West, the tradition or the 
presentiment of which goes back to the first ages of history. 

In the Book of Job, he read of "a land hidden from the eyes of 
all living, even from the birds of the air, the way to which was known 
to God only." 

Esdras, after affirming that the ocean occupies only a small por- 
tion of the earth, adds in the true spirit of prophecy, " One day shall 
be broutrht to licfht a land which now is hidden." 

But among the sacred writings the prophecies of Isaiah w^ere fore- 
most in Columbus' thoughts. At length the prophet appeared to him 
in his dreams, and pointing with one hand to the West, confirmed 
his assurance of a great discovery. 

To these sacred authorities was united the tesdmony of nume- 
rous secular writers, poets and philosophers. In Plato the Genoese 
navigator found the story of Atlantis, and saw in it more than a 
philosophic romance or die dream of an old man. For him, the At- 
lantis of Plato, of Solon and of the Egyptian sages was a country 
separated from the Eastern world by a convulsion of Nature, and 
one day to be reunited to It by the genius of man. 



SONGS OF HIS MUSE. 39 

Seneca, too, had sung in beautiful and inspired verse, "When the 
Ocean hath broken her bands in which the terrestrial world lies 
prisoned, then in future ages shall Thetis unveil to thee a great new 
land, and Thule shall be no longer the limit of the habitable world." 
Plutarch had seen this great unknown country reflected in the 
mirror of the moon ; long before Seneca's time the poetic tradition 
ran of a huge island lying beyond the Columns of Hercules. There, 
according to the myth of Theopompus, reigned an eternal spring. 
There Saturn slept in a deep cave, surrounded by the genii who had 
served him while yet he reigned over gods artd men; and these 
genii kept the register of the dreams of their slumberine master, 
whose visions were the thoughts of Jove. Not one of these details 
could be disputed, for a man of our world, a sage who had lived in 
this land of the Meropians, had revealed to Sylla what he had 
learned from the genii who guarded the sleep of Saturn. 

To these songs of the Muse who watched over the youth of 
Columbus, Science and Philosophy, by the mouths of Aristode, of 
Strabo and of Diodorus Siculus, added more precise information. 
The mighty Aristotle had said, or had been reported to say, " All 
these facts prove beyond doubt not only that the earth is round, but 
that its circumference is not very great. * * * The relation be- 
tween the islands known to us and the seas which environ them 
holds also between our continent and the Atlantic. * * * j,^ jj^g 
Ocean which extends beyond the Columns of Hercules the Cartha- 
ginians discovered, they say, a desert island covered with forests and 
pierced with navigable rivers." 

So Strabo, commenting upon Eratosthenes, had written : " The 
temperate zone comes back upon itself in the shape of a circle, so 
that, if the Adantic were not so broad, we could go by the Iberian 



30 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

(or Spanish) sea to India, always keeping on the same parallel of 
latitude." 

To go by tlie Spanish sea to India ! This great problem, which 
it was the task of Columbus to solve, had been dealt with more or 
less by many authors. The breadth of the Atlantic, which had been 
such a scarecrow to Strabo, was so lightly regarded by the school 
of Aristotle that Seneca at a comparatively late date hail written in 
his Nafjiral Questions, " When man contemplates the universe, the 
majestic course of the stars, and of that celestial region through 
which Saturn rolls his thirty gears' orbit, he despises the narrow con- 
fines of his Mother Earth, How far is it from the further coasts of 
Spain to India? but a few days' journey, with a favoring wind." 

We are quoting only here and there from the testimony of an- 
tiquity, to which Columbus, in common with his age, attached immense 
importance. However great his erudition may have seemed accord- 
ing to the standard of the time, he did not always quote his autho- 
rities from the original. Bacon, Averroes, and Martyr d'Anghierra, 
even Nicolo de Lira, and especially Pierre d'Ailly, an ingenious com- 
piler, are the names which occur most frequently in his naive com- 
positions. 

There are two personages whom he has not quoted, but who 
must have inlluenced him strongly, the merchant-sailor Conti, and the 
famous Marco Polo, surnamed Messer Milioue, for his traveller's tales 
of the gold and jewels of China and Ceylon. The tales of these 
men consisted in part of facts which they had observed, and partly 
of marvels which they had taken on hearsay. Their Voyages were 
the common reading of the time, figuring in all contemporary me- 
moirs as the chief topics of conversation. Columbus must have read 
them; and if he did not believe in Polo's cities of gold, with twelve 



HIS MARRIAGE. ,j 

thousand bridges (whose number ContI gravely corrects to ten 
thousand), he might justly suppose that this Cathay, of whose opu- 
lence the discoverer had brought back golden proof, would at least 
pay the charges of a new crusade. And this was the real object of 
the poor Genoese pilot; to discover the shortest route from Europe 
to India, and to consecrate the treasures obtained by this discovery 
to the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre. 

While he was sketching the outlines of his great design with a 
peculiar mixture of prudence and zeal, having, as he said later, 
"constant intercourse with men of letters, with ecclesiastics and lay- 
men, Latins and Greeks, Jews and Moors," an unexpected circum- 
stance not only brought about a happy change in his private life, 
but furnished him with new means of study and of practical observa- 
tion. 

About the time of his arrival in Portugal, the little Italian colony 
attached to the country by the protection of Don Henriquez had just 
suffered a grievous loss. Barthelemy Mognis de Perestrello, a cele- 
brated naval commander in the service of the Infant, had just died, 
rumed by the very recompense awarded to his faithful services. He 
had been named Governor of Porto Santo, one of the Madeira 
Islands, and empowered to colonize it, with a grant of great posses- 
sions therein. But his capital was not sufficient for so great an 
enterprise ; and a curious disaster ruined the colony and his hopes. 
The first settlers had brought with them some rabbits. These litde 
animals multiplied with such rapidity that they devoured every green 
herb in the island, and rendered cultivation Impossible. 

In the reduced condition of the family, an offer of marriage from 
a man, poor like themselves, but of noble birth, was readily accepted. 
Columbus had become attached to Donna Felippa de Perestrello, and 



32 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

had succeeded in recommending himself to her; and the wedding 
soon took place. It was not a marriage which would commend itself 
to a prudent matchmaker. The bride had vast possessions in a 
desert island ; the bridegroom had a world yet to be discovered. 

They lived under the same roof with the Perestrello family, and 
Columbus helped towards the common support by his map-drawing 
and bookselling; but the high social position of his new relations 
.secured for him the attention of great people, and finally brought 
him to the notice of the King, with whom he talked of his voyages, 
and probably of his schemes. In confirmation of his project, the 
King showed him one day sugar canes, as large as the cane of 
India, which had been picked up floating off the Azores. Columbus 
learned moreover that on these shores and those of the Madeira 
Islands had been driven by the Western winds sometimes huge pines 
of different species from those of the Old World, sometimes pieces 
of wood delicately carved in patterns unknown to Europe. Still 
more ; on the beach of the He des Fleurs had been found two 
corpses of men totally unlike any of the known races of mankind. 

This information, which only confirmed his convictions, Columbus 
received from a skilful and hardy naval commander, Don Pedro 
Correa, who had married the youngest sister of Donna Felippa, and 
succeeded to his father-in-law as Governor of Porto Santo. 

Columbus and his wife went with the new Governor to this 
island where their common interests now lay, and there was born to 
them a son, to whom they gave the Spanish name Diego. 

The hopes which drew Columbus to Porto Santo proved falla- 
cious; and he resumed his sailor's avocation. He saw the Guinea 
coast, and the mouth of the Golden River {Flcuve iV Or), and his 
mind was inflamed by the sight of the Portuguese discoveries in 



PERFECTION OF HIS PLANS 
■ Africa. Many of these discoveries were due to Don Barthelemy de 
Perestrello, his father-in-law, and were recorded in Don Barthelemy's 
note-books and maps, which were now in the possession of Columbus. 
In 1473, he was in Salone, helping to support his aged father, 
who was still in the same pecuniary straits which had compelled him 
to leave Genoa. 

In 1474, a memorable date, he modestly submitted his completed 
projects to the famous Toscanelli, one of the lights of the New 
Geography, and found this illustrious savant in full accord with his 
hopes and belief. 

By the year 1476, his plans were so perfected in the minutest 
details that no further modification was ever found necessary. Ac- 
cordingly, he went back to Genoa, his native city, and from thence 
to Venice. He laid bare before either State in turn his schemes and 
expectations, and offered to either the gift of a new world. But his 
patriotic efforts failed to overcome the prejudices, the pride, and the 
proverbial economy of republics. He went once again to visit his 
father at Salone, and then, taking little thought of the adventurers 
who might profit by the publication of his plans, he resumed the 
sailor life which solaced him under every disappointment. For he 
was a true child of the Ocean ; sharing her profoundness of depth 
and her stormy impulses. His eyes shone with the blue and the 
fire of the Sea; and he turned from an unfriendly world to the 
bosom of his mother. 

We meet him next in Iceland, hundreds of miles from ungrate- 
ful Italy. There is not a trace, in his notes upon this voyage, of 
bitterness at his failure. 

"In the month of February of the year 1477, I sailed more than 
a hundred miles beyond Tille (Thule), whose southern portion is 



34 



CHRIS TO J' HER COL CMB US. 



seventj-three degrees above the Equator, and not sixty three, as some 
geographers pretend ; and Tille is without the Hne which terminates 













i 






ii^S^SSaSS? 



COLUMBUS BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF STATE. 

the west of Ptolemy. The English, especially the men of Bristol, go 
with their merchandize to this island, which is as large as England, 
When I was there, the sea was not frozen, although the tides rise 



HIS GEOGRAPHICAL BIJ'IXATIO.VS. 35 

and fall twent\--six fathoms. It is true that tlie Tille of which Ptolemy 
speaks lies where he has indicated, and is now called Friesland." 

In spite of errors of distance and of latitude which, in the present 
state of geographical science, would be apparent to a child, this 
passage bears witness to the writer's rare sagacity. He is the first 
among modern writers to distincruish between two islands of Thule, 
the smallest and southernmost of which is called Finland, and is the 
idtivia TJude of Ptolemy and Strabo. To use Humboldt's expres- 
sion, Columbus had divined what our researches into ancient oeoera- 
phy have rendered more and more probable. 

We may here note that Humboldt, in his remarks upon the 
passage quoted, refuses to admit that Columbus coukl have received 
in Iceland any information of a nature to encourage him in the pro- 
secution of his great enterprise. " He might have learned," sajs he, 
"that the Scandinavian colonists of Greenland had discovered \"in- 
land, and the Friesland fishermen had landed at an island called 
Drogeo; but all this news would have seemed to him to have no 
connection with his projects." The celebrated geographer, Adam of 
Bremen, no doubt knew of the existence of Vinland in the tenth 
century, and at a later date Ortelius referred the discovery of the 
American continent to the Normans of the ninth century; but the 
works of these authors were not published to the world, the former 
until long after the death of Columbus, and the latter only ten years 
before it. Moreover, if he had learned all these facts in Iceland, 
they would necessarily have influenced his plans, whereas we find 
him, after his return, submitting those plans to King John and his 
council just in the same shape in which they were laid before Tos- 
canelli in 1474. 

The intelligent successor of Alphonso \^ gave at first to these 



36 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

overtures a bc-tter reception than the Senators of Genoa and Venice. 
Matters went so far that Columbus named his price in case of suc- 
cess. This price was deemed exorbitant, especially in consideration 
of his poverty and obscurity; but Columbus refused to abate a jot 
of it, and resumed his humble occupations with a calmness and in- 
dustry which still further commended him to the King. 

In spite of the contemptuous opposition of some of his house- 
hold, the monarch brought the matter before a Superior Council. It 
was discussed with much heat, and (a noteworthy sign of progress) 
was treated altogether as a question of expense. The King seemed 
willing to incur any sacrifice of men and money; and Columbus was 
asked to prepare a detailed account of his general and special pro- 
posals, with reasons and calculations to support them. He obeyed 
without suspicion, and waited patiently for the result of an examina- 
tion to which he was not admitted. This examination lasted long. 
It was still going on, and the litde that transpired concerning it 
seemed to Columbus to augur well for his hopes, when a rumor 
spread dirough Lisbon which made him suspend his judgment. 

A number of sailors, recently returned in sorry plight from some 
mysterious expedition, heaped ridicule upon the Genoese and his 
notions. At first in whispers, and afterwards, as they warmed with 
wine, openly and loutlly, they boasted that they had tried this famous 
project of Columbus, and had paid dear for their captain's confidence 
in that adventurer. 

Their tales were partly true : the commander of these braggarts, 
a sailor of some reputation, had been furnished with copies of the 
plans, maps, and notes of Columbus, and had been sent to sea, 
ostensibly bound for Cape Verde, to rob the confiding Genoese of . 
his just reward. But it was easier to appropriate the conception of 




FATHER AND SON. 



LEAVES LISBON. ^^ 

Columbus than his will and genius. A few days' navigation west- 
ward exhausted their courage. A great fear came upon them of 
the unknown latitudes into which they were steering. A favorin<'- 
wind seemed to them only to make their destruction more certain, 
and they blessed the storm which drove them back, and finally cast 
them again upon the shores of Portugal. 

No one, according to their captain's account, could possibly have 
succeeded where he had failed. The Ocean was impassably broad, 
and none but a fool would deny it. Columbus was firm in his be- 
lief, but the treachery with which he had been treated determined 
him to make no further offers to the Portuguese. The King saw 
his fault too late, and not unjustly cast the blame on his advisers. 
He offered Columbus all that had been in dispute between them, 
but in vain ; the great navigator was immovable. He went back to 
his work and to his studies; and at length, towards the end of 1484, 
having strong apprehensions that the mission which he had once 
been eager to undertake would now be forced upon him, he left 
Lisbon suddenly and quietly, taking with him his young son Diecro. 
He had lost, to his great grief, the loving companion who had 
helped him to sustain the burden and heat of the day. He lono-ed 
for his native air and for home faces; and he went first to Genoa. 
He found litde encouragement there, for his plans found no favor 
with the parsimonious ofificers of State ; but he saw his old father 
again, and settled him comfortably in his little house in the city limits. 
His duty fulfilled alike to his family and to his ungrateful coun- 
try, he suddenly determined, for some reason unknown to us, to go 
next into Spain. 

Like a bird of passage, which long circles undecided over the 
same space, and then suddenly shoots away like an arrow in a 



40 



c/iR/s ToriiiiR COT. UMn us. 



straic^ht unchaneine Ijath, so had Columbus turned at last to his dis- 



tant yoal. 




- iiCUBUC- 



HIS FATHER'S PARTING BENEDICTION 




CHAPTER 



To one who bears in mind the condition of 
Europe at the end of the fifteenth century, it will seem 
that Spain was, of all the States of Christendom, that from 
which Columbus could have hoped the least. 

True, the monarchs of that country were Ferdinanc 
Aragon and Isabella of Castile, noted for their piety and for their 
poverty, to both of which the enterprise of our hero made appeal. 
But Spain was at that moment engaged in a brilliant and successful 

43 



44 CUKISTOrUER COLUMBUS. 

war against the Moors, and was rescuing her soil foot by foot Irom 
the Moslem. Love of glory and love of gain alike urged her to finish 
this patriotic work before concerning herself with the conquest and 
conversion of a distant and unknown people. The Moors and the 
Arabs were nearer at hand and more redoubtable than the inhabitants 
of Cipangu and Cathay. The nation and the crown alike were im- 
poverished by the sacrifices demanded by the war, and had neither men 
nor means to spare for an expedition so uncertain as that of Columbus. 

We may suppose that these considerations had not escaped his 
mind. When he asked of warlike and impoverished Spain what had 
been refused to him by his native Genoa, by opulent Venice and 
adventurous Portugal, it was because of a ruler in whom Spain sur- 
passed them all. He found in Isabella the Catholic the destined le- 
ver through whom he could move the world. 

Isabella united in a wonderful degree the strength of a man with 
the grace and charm of a woman. She seemed chosen by Heaven 
for the double task of driving the Crescent from Spain and of bring- 
ing about the discovery of the New World. 

We must give her husband the credit of sometimes understand- 
ing her, and of leaving her judgment unfettered. He shared her 
power while they lived, antl her fame after death. They have gone 
down to posterity together as the Two Kings. 

The repulse of the Portuguese invasion, the reestablishment of 
order in the finances of the kingdom, the growth of national wealth, 
reform among the clergy and in the convents, the encouragement of 
Art, of Science and of the belles Ictlrcs; — these are the smallest 
achievements of their reign. What part of these was due to Fer- 
dinand we may judge from the history ot Columbus. 

Versed alike m war, in science and in letters, Isabella was only 



ISABELLA THE CATHOLIC. 45 

the more eager to merit the commendation bestowed upon the 
Roman nation : Lanam fecit. No other hand than hers e\ er spun 
the hnen for her husband's use. 

Her modesty was as great as her intelHgence. At the council 
board her first desire was to be fully informed ; and once having 
taken her resolution, she expressed it with grace and dignity. One 
day, when respectfully blamed for her slowness in prosecuting the 
siege of Grenada, she plucked a pomegranate, the Spanish name of 
which is grenada, and, eating it slowly, kernel after kernel, " It is 
kernel by kernel," said she, " that Grenada must be eaten." 

Isabella is above all praise. M. de Montalembert proclaims her 
" the most noble creature who ever reigned over men." Among her 
contemporaries, Oviedo is lost in contemplating " that splendid soul, 
that sea of virtues." Others compare her to St. Helena, the mother 
of Constantine, to St. Theresa, to St. Elizabeth of Hungary. Peter 
Martyr wrote to one of the most illustrious Romans of the Renais- 
sance, " Take for a Sibylline leaf, Pomponius, what I am about to 
tell you. This woman is stronger than a strong man ; she is above 
humanity, the soul of modesty and honor." 

Ferdinand's chaplain declares himself unable to paint such charms 
and such virtues. All the grace, distinction and dignity of the King 
were present, he says, in a degree yet more conspicuous in his consort. 

And finally, the Franciscan cardinal Cisneros, celebrated both for 
his scientific and administrative ability, declares that the sun never 
shone upon her equal. Cisneros had been not only a member of 
her Council, but her private spiritual adviser. Before she knew him, 
however, she had found in the Franciscan brotherhood a Director 
who was to exert a decisive influence upon the most glorious act 
of her reigrn. 



46 



CUR IS TOPiir.R COL UMB us. 



Juan Perez de Marchena was a Franciscan friar, with notiiing to 
recommend him but a growing reputation for science and for piety, 



»x''f>Vj-v\ :'■.■ 




IN THE ROYAL PRESENCE. 



when Isabella chose him as her confessor. Like a loyal subject, he 
obeyed his Sovereign's bidding; but his heart was in the cloister, 
and he soon obtained the (.Queen's consent to a retirement which 




C5 

m 

1=1 



^ 



==agt'wi'iii'aiii')iif..';:;;i't 



SANTA MARIA DE LA RABIDA. 47 

suited well his turn for meditation and study. But Isabella was not 
willing wholly to lose his counsel ; and in his observatory at the 
monastery of Santa Maria de la Rabida, Juan Perez was often drawn 
from his researches and his exercises of devotion to answer the let- 
ters ot his Queen. 

A more favorable place for astronomical observation could hardly 
have been found. This convent, lately restored from a ruinous con- 
dition by a French prince, commands the view southward of a vast 
sweep of ocean, and northward of the great plain of the Guadalqui- 
vir and the Guadiana. The monastic community was poor, depend- 
ing for subsistence in great measure upon a garden, a few vines, 
and a grove ot huge cypresses, umbrella-pines, and palm trees. 
One of the latter is still standing, the only tree in the garden of La 
Rabida which the ravages of time and the ruthless hand of man have 
spared. At a little distance is Palos de Moguer, a small sea port, 
now as desolate and forsaken as the monastery which overlooks it 
and the country around; but in 14S5 it was a place of some import- 
ance ; and Father Juan de Marchena found at his service the expe- 
rience of pilots not a few, and even of some men of education, such 
as Garcia Hernandez, the physician of the comm.unity. 

One day when Hernandez hatl just made his regular visit to the 
convent, the Father Superior accompanied him to the gate. His at- 
tention was attracted to a group outside. A young lad with a fine, 
noble countenance, but pale and thin, and apparently overcome by fa- 
tigue, was eagerly devouring some food which the good porter had 
offered him. Opposite him stood a man, almost in rags and covered 
with dust, who watched his boy with the tender look of a father. Juan 
de Marchena, too, was a father, the father of a poor community. 
Moved by the sight, he came forward, and prayed the stranger to 



48 



CHR 1 S TOP HER CO L UMB US. 



take food and drink ; and after his guest had repaired his wasted 
strength, the good monk, who had recognized in his clear eyes the 
expression of a noble soul, began to question him concerning his past. 



REZ Dr/VlARCHEN/^ 




f--O[0(Ar£A^^ c^^ 



JUAN PEREZ DE MARCHENA. 



The stranger answered that he was a Genoese, as his accent had 
betrayed; that his name was Christopher Columbus: and that having 



COLUMBUS AT THE MONASTERY. 49 

conceived and elaborated a plan for going to India by way of the 
Ocean Sea, he had come to offer to the Two Kin^s a share in the 
glory of the enterprise. 

This naive declaration, which would iiave moved the ridicule of 
many, excited no surprise in Father Marchena ; he replied that he 
shared the convictions of Columbus ; that he doubted not that the 
Two Kings (or at least one of them) would welcome his proposal 
with joy; but that circumstances were unfavorable for the present, 
and while waiting for the opportunity, Columbus, he hoped, would re- 
main with their little community. 

The offer was accepted in the spirit in which it had been made, 
and Diego and his father assumed the same day the Franciscan dress. 
The garb of a Franciscan was not new to Columbus ; from motives 
of piety and of poverty combined, he had often before assumed it. 

And here, however impatient I may feel to bring my hero to the 
execution of his great work, I must ask the reader to pause at this 
epoch of repose in a life which seems to have had no other time tor 
rest. Columbus remained for nearly a year at La Rabida ; but the 
delay in the execution of his plans was apparently borne without im- 
patience. He had his son with him ; he was surrounded by sympa- 
thizing and believing friends, and the noble Perez was using all his 
credit at court to bring his friend's project to a successful issue. 

At last the happy hour seemed to have come. The Moorish 
war had brought the Two Kings to Cordova, where they were to re- 
main a while and rest from their fatigues. Columbus set off for Cor- 
dova with a letter of recommendation for the Queen's confessor. 
But his proposals were not even listened to ; he was treated as a 
visionary, and had the mortification of seeing the Court leave Cor- 
dova without having obtained even a glimpse of Isabella. Juan Pe- 



50 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

rez had been too modest ; he had not sent his friend direcdy to 
the Queen. 

While he remained at Cordova, CoUimbus took up again for a 
living liis art of map-drawing; all the while, however, enlisting par- 
tisans for his project, and making numerous and powerful friends. 
The merit of the man shone through his humble circumstances, and 
obtained for him the hand of a girl of noble birth, Beatriz Henri- 
quez, by whom he had a son named Fernando, or Ferdinand. This 
marriage is related to us by the Historiographer Royal of Spain, 
Antonio da Herrera. It encountered some opposition from the Hen- 
riquez family; but the extent of that opposition has been grossly 
exaggerated, for on his very first voyage, when his greatness was yet 
a question for the future to decide, Columbus took with him a nephew 
of Donna Beatriz ; and at a later date, a young brother of hers com- 
manded one of the ships of the third expedition. 

But the happiness of the newly married couple could not long 
endure. Columbus did not belong to himself, but to his work. For 
a while he might forget his task; but the hour of separation soon 
came, and Donna Beatriz resigned herself to her loneliness with a 
self-abnegation which showed her worthy of her husband. She de- 
voted herself to the education of her son, and of Diego, who was 
left under her charge ; she saw her husband only at long intervals ; 
and she lived a quiet, but noble and useful life near her family at 
Cordova. ^ 

Columbus had not been a year married, when the military court 
of the Two Kings went into summer quarters at Salamanca. To 
this city Columbus was summoned in haste by Gonzalez de Men- 
doza, Archbishop of Toledo and Graml Cardinal of Spain. The Car- 
dinal's interest had been invoked by friends in Cordova; and a 







I 

Q 



IN THE ROYAL PRESENCE. 51 

personal interview with Columbus removed all scruples and difficul- 
ties. The obscure Genoese pilot had the honor and the advantage 
of being presented to the two sovereigns by a personage whose in- 
fluence and credit were so great that he was called the Third Kine- 

But at that solemn interview, Columbus had no eyes for any 
potentate but Isabella. 

The emotion which the presence of this Queen, the protectress 
of the Christian faith, excited in the bosom of every fervent Catholic, 
was increased by her noble demeanor, by the beauty of her features, 
her abundant yellow hair and sea-gray eyes. The feelings of the 
great navigator can be left to our reader's imagination. 

The future was to be his; but the present lay still in the hand of the 
adversary. His reasoning, which had prevailed with the Queen and 
made even the King hesitate, produced little effect on an assemblage 
composed not of geographers, but of statesmen and theologians. Of this 
latter class, the Dominicans, alone, to the eternal glory of their order, 
recognized the probability of his theories and his own sincere piety. 

In their convent of St. Etienne, they offered Columbus the most 
generous hospitality. Conferences were held there which had, at 
least, the effect of raising Columbus in public opinion. The King 
and Queen were evidently favorable to him; and his judges, while they 
combated his arguments, declared that they could hardly resist the 
charm of his eloquence. 

Their opposition to him was founded upon the incoherent and 
obsolete prejudices of a by- gone day. Some of them declared it was 
absurd to suppose that a hemisphere could exist where men and 
animals would have to walk with their heads down and their feet in 
the air. Others admitted the spherical form of the earth, but saw in 
it an insurmountable obstacle to the return of the expedition. 



52 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

It was easier for Columbus to refute such objections than to 
persuade the minds of judt^^es who were secretly biased by the sup- 
posed inopportuneness of his project. Operations against the Moors 
were soon recommenced, and this celebrated assembly, called together 
with such difficulty, broke up without reaching any conclusion. 

But the discussion had effectually confirmed the Two Kings in 
their favorable opinion; and their liking for Columbus was increased 
by his active service as soldier and as engineer in the war against 
the infidels. The siege of Malaga was his first affair. There he saw 
the heroic Isabella, in shining armor, brandishing the famous sword 
still preserved for our admiration in the Armeria Real of Madrid. 
On the blade is incrusted the name of the celebrated armorer Anto- 
nius. On one side of the hilt is inscribed "Always do I long for 
honor;" and on the other, "Now am I watching; with me there is 
peace." 

Malaga surrendered in 14S7; and Columbus, whose expenses 
during the war had been repaid to him, and who had been soothed 
with the most flattering promises, followed the Court to Saragossa, 
and thence to Valladolid. There he received from the King of 
Portugal a letter, couched in terms of entreaty, asking for a renewal 
of their relations, and accepting in advance all the conditions for which 
"his particular friend" had stipulated previous to the execution of his 
enterprise. It was now near the end of the year 1488; the war was 
dragging on its weary length; the Two Kings, no doubt, were well 
disposed to him, but Columbus felt that this favor did him no good 
with his adversaries. Under these circumstances, the offer of John 
11. must have been peculiarly tempting; yet he answered by a respect- 
ful but decided refusal. He cherished no rancor against the King 
of Portugal for an affront for which he had amply atoned; but the 




ISABELLA AT THE SIEGE OF MALAGA. 



COLUMBUS DISHEARTENED. 55 

chief reliance of the great navigator was on Isabella. The pious en- 
thusiasm of this Queen seemed to him the surest guarantee, not so 
much of the means for his enterprise, as of the realization of his ulti- 
mate designs. The discovery of a Western India was to him only a 
step toward the delivery of the Holy Land from Mahometan insolence. 
To the haughty challenge of the Sultan of Egypt, Isabella had answered 
that she would put Islam between two fires. She had charged, more- 
over, the two Franciscan monks who conveyed her threats, to announce 
to the Sultan the surrender of Boza, of which they had been witnesses, 
and the coming capture of Grenada. 

Meanwhile the junta, who had been assembled again at Sala- 
m.anca to pass upon the projects of Columbus, solemnly declared 
against them as impracticable both on practical and scientific grounds. 
This declaration, amusing enough in the light of the present day, had 
no influence on the Queen. She promised Columbus all that he 
asked; but the execution of her promises was always postponed till 
the end of the war; and the war seemed interminable. 

Days, months and years succeeded each other with heart-breaking 
slowness. There were marches and countermarches, battle and sieges, 
tedious even to read of, but serving as a measure of Columbus' heroic 
perseverance. In active warfare his time passed quicker; for he had 
the excitement of danger, and he exposed his life as freely as the 
meanest soldier. But the festivals and public rejoicings were out of 
keeping with his mood, with that hope deferred which made his heart 
sick. 

At length he determined to go back to the monastery, and find 
consolation with the Father Superior. Four years had passed since 
their separation. Again the kiss of peace was given, and the con- 
vent opened wide its gates to the troubled spirit of the great navi- 



56 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

gator. We need not describe the sorrow of the good Father, who 
felt that he himself was partly responsible tor the fruitless efforts of 
his friend. 

But though Columbus found no fault with Isabella, in whom he 
had from the outset an implicit belief, and the embarrassments of 
whose position he understood, he saw that circumstances might long 
be adverse, and was inclined to repair either to England, where 
through his brother Bartholomew he had formed several connections, 
or to the court of Charles MIL King of France, who had lately 
given his proposal a favorable reception. 

Father Marchena did not hesitate to combat these projects. He 
reminded Columbus of the youth and fickleness of Charles VIII. and 
of his enmity to Italy; an enmity which even then was menacing the 
navigator's native country. In France, too, all his labors must be 
begun again. If a new Joan of Arc could be found for his protec- 
tion, he must remember that Joan of Arc had been burned at the 
stake, without an effort on her countrymen's part to save her. 

Nor was Father Marchena alone in pleading his country's cause. 
During the absence of Columbus, the powerful influence ot Juan 
Perez had raised him up friends and follow'ers as by a miracle. The 
physician Juan Hernandez not only avowed his belief in the project, 
but asked and obtained the favor of being on board on the first 
voyage. Not less zealous and useful was Martin Alonzo Pinzon, one 
of the best navigators and richest owner of privateers in Palos, who 
offered to defray a large part of the expenses of the expedition. 
Such flattering assurances of help could not but soften the mood of 
Columbus. 

One day, seeing him disheartened, Juan Perez, who had taken it 
upon himself to write directly to the Queen, showed Columbus the 



THE RETURN TO LA RABIDA. 57 

encouraging answer which he had just received, and by which he was 
summoned to court. Cohmibus allowed himself to yield ; and at his 
first sign of relenting, the Father Superior borrowed and saddled a 
mule, and set out at midnight, alone and without a guide. In this 




THE RETURN TO LA RABIDA. 

manner he traversed near a hundred leagues of a country recently 
conquered from the Moors; and arrived at last, exhausted indeed, 
but safe and sound, before Grenada, now beleaguered by the Two 
Kmgs. The good monk, too. had a siege to press. He was admit- 



58 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

ted without delay to the presence of Isabella, and wrote to Columbus 
the same day, " I came, I saw, the Lord conquered." 

For Isabella not only renewed to Perez the assurances she had 
given to Columbus, but summoned the navigator to her presence in 
pressing terms of courtesy, and with the promise of paying ail the 
expenses of his journey and his stay. An event of still better augury 
was the fall of Grenada Columbus came just in time to see the 
Crescent pale before the Cross, and the keys of the city surrendered 
to the Spanish sovereigns by Boabdil, the last of the Moorish kings. 

The triumphs of his religion, which he hoped to extend beyond 
the limits of the civilized world, filled Columbus' heart with joy ; but 
the lovely prospect proved again a 7nirage. The junta, again con- 
vened in haste, did not venture to treat the Queen's protege with dis- 
dain ; but, relying upon the more hesitating belief of the King, it 
rejected absolutely the conditions which Columbus had stipulated for 
himself in the event of success 

Like the minister of state, who, at the height of his favor, kept 
in a secret closet his shepherd's coat and crook, Columbus, even 
when appearances were brightest, had not parted with the faithful 
mule which had brought him to Court He made no complaint, and 
informed no one of his intention, but mounted sadly and rode away 
to Cordova, to make his preparations for departure, and to bid adieu 
to his family; he returned once again to Grenada, where nothing had 
changed for the better, and took the road to France, bidding in his 
heart an eternal farewell to Spain. His faith in Isabella was gone. 

He was wrong. He had not gone two leagues from Grenada, 
and was about engaging his saddle-horse for the journey upon the 
Pinos Bridge, when an officer of the royal guards, glittering with cm- 
broidery, galloped up at full speed, stopped before him, and, dis- 



THE MIDNIGHT JOURNEY. 



59 



mounting, respectfully offered him, witli uncovered head, a packet 



sealed with the arms of Aragon and Castile. 




THE MIDNIGHT JOURNEY. 



Columbus, ac- 
cording to the popu- 
lar version, refused 
at first even to ac- 
quaint himself with 
the contents of a 
missive which could 
no longer affect his 
resolve. But the 
name of Isabella 
constrained him 
He opened the 
packet, and found 
therein no empty 
promises, but the 
draught of Letters 
Patent, according to 
him all which he had 
asked. 

We shall soon 



hear him enumerating the honors and privileges conferred on him by 
the Queen ; for it was to her alone that he owed this simple ac- 
ceptance of the conditions on which he had so manfully insisted before 
the Junta. 

To whom was due this sudden and decisive intervention of the 
Queen ? We need hardly say it was to Juan Perez. 

The o-ood Father no sooner learned the Junta's decision, than 



6o CHRISTOPHER COLUMJWS. 

without wasting words in a vain effort to alter the resoUition of Co- 
himbus, he went directly to Isabella. In her presence, supported by 
the faithful Ouintanella and the beautiful Duchess of Moya, whose 
name should be inscribed on these pages in letters of gold, the 
courageous Franciscan pleaded the cause of genius ; not against 
Isabella, who was already persuaded, but against Ferdinand, who 
placed his objections only on the score of an exhausted treasury. 
This had in truth been the real obstacle from the outset. But the 
Queen, by a happy inspiration, offered to pledge the jewels of her 
crown to defray the cost of the expedition. 

The King yielded gracefully to her will, but threw upon the 
crown of Castile all the risk and peril of the enterprise. Luiz de 
Sant-Angel did better. He was Receiver of the Ecclesiastical Dues 
of Aragon; he left the crown of Castile its diamonds, he refused the 
Queen's pledge, and engaged to advance all the necessary expenses. 

Meanwhile Juan Perez had set off for Palos, blessing the name of 
Him who holds in his hand the hearts of Kings and Queens. Scarcely 
a month after his return to the monastery, Columbus rejoined him. 
In his possession were Letters Patent authorizing his expedition, to- 
gether with gt " Letter of Privilege," raising him to the rank of Grand 
Admiral of the Ocean Seas, and conferring on him the title of Don. 

It was also provided that the port of Palos, from which were due 
to the crown two caravels, armed and fully manned, should be the 
place of embarkation, and the community of that city were allowed 
ten days to make ready. 

This latter clause was exceedingly unpopular; and the very sailors 
who, the evening before, would all have vouched for the success of 
Columbus, now, when they were asked to help him, showed a repug- 
nance almost amountinir to revolt. 



WESTWARD HO! 



6i 



This last effort of the adversary, as Cohimbus called it, was 
greatly annoying to the newly created Admiral. But his better angel 
was in the ascendant. The authority and the persuasions of Juan 
Perez and his monks recalled the rebellious to their duty, and calmed 
their foolish terrors. Martin Alonzo Pinzon, whose friendly disposition 




WEST^AfARD HO! 

has already been noticed, was a most important ally. He and his 
two brothers finally decided to assist, with their means and by their 
personal example, in the manning of the caravels and' in their adven- 
turous cruise. 

From this time all went smooth. Difficulties vanished, murmurs 
ceased, friends and relations listened to reason. Officers and sailors 
put themselves in readiness; their business, their religious duties,— all, 
to use the nautical phrase, were cleared. It was now the early morn- 
ing of Friday, August 3d, 1492. Columbus, having kept his vigil of 
arms at the monastery, went down to the harbor through a tearful 



62 



CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 



and excited, but respectful throng. He hailed the Pinta; and standing 
erect on the poop-deck, his sonorous voice bade set all sail "in the 
name of Jesus Christ." 

The convent bell in the distance rang the morning mass. Juan 
Perez, from the summit of the cliff, sent a parting benediction to liis 
friend. 

The breeze blew fresh from the east. The three ships passed 
the bar of the Odiel, now often shown to wondering pilgrims; the 
sky and the sea were alike propitious. The last difficulty had been 
overcome. 





THE SURRENDER OF GRENADA. 



CHAPTER IV. 



"In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ: Most noble, most 

Christian, most virtuous and potent princes, King and Queen of Spain 

and of the islands of the sea, our sovereign lords: In this present 

year of 1492, after your Highnesses had brought to a conclusion 

65 



66 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

the war against the Moors who bore rule in Europe, and had ter- 
minated that war in tlie great city of Grenada, '■' '^ '^ '=' where 
1 saw tlie royal banners of your Highnesses floating^, by force of 
arms, over the towers ot the Alhambra, and where also I saw 
the Moorish king come down to the city gates to yield himself up 
and to kiss )our Highnesses' hands. * * * * Presently thereafter, 
in the month now instant, and after the tidings which I had given 
to your Highnesses of the countries of India '■' * ''' '•' you de- 
termined as Catholic Christians and as lovers and propagators of 
the holy Christian faith, to send me, Christopher Columbus, to the 
said countries of India, to see the princes and the peoples thereof 
and the lands possessed by them, and the state of all things therein, 
and the means whereby might be worked their conversion to our 
holy religion. Your Highnesses commanded me not to go eastward 
by land, * * * •"'= but on the contrary to take the Western 
route, by which we know not positively to this day that any man 
hath passed. Therefore your Highnesses bade me set sail with a 
sufficient equipment of ships and men for the said countries, and 
upon this occasion, of your great grace, ennobled me, so that hence- 
forward I should call myself Don, and should be Grand' Admiral 
of the Ocean Sea, and Viceroy and Perpetual Governor of all the 
islands and countries discovered and conquered by me in the said 
Ocean Sea; and you decreed that my eldest son should succeed me, 
and that it should be thus from generation to generation forever. 
* '" '" * I came then to the town of Palos, which is a port of 
the sea, where I made ready three ships of a fitting size for such 
an enterprise, and sailed from the said port, well furnished with much 
provision for the voyage and with many sailors." 

Thus began the precious Memoirs of Columbus, which his friend. 




m 

Q 
^ 



© 



THE SIZE OE THE FLEET. 67 

the worthy but somewhat stupid Las Casas, unluckily abridged, 
giving us the original text only of a few parts, among others of 
the commencement. This latter fragment is the more valuable, as 
it confirms the sagacity of Columbus in two points. The first is 
liis careful enumeration and insistance upon the rights and tides 
accorded to him. The second relates to a point on which many 
well-intentioned historians have represented him as blindly venture- 
some. 

In fact, many writers seem to have thought that they would add 
to Columbus' glory by exaggerating the small size and bad con- 
dition of the ships in which he undertook his first voyage of 
discovery. The truth is now better known on this head, as it is 
on many others; and it appears that Columbus did nothing imprudent, 
considering his aim and the circumstances in which he was placed. 
It might, indeed, be foolish for an Admiral of our own time to 
undertake, with such scanty means, so hazardous an expedition; but 
a navigator of the fifteenth century could have demanded no better 
equipment. 

The Santa Maria, which Columbus commanded in person, and 
which he often wished of smaller burthen, was flush decked, with 
double deck, fore and alt. She was four-masted, with two sails square- 
rigged, and two lateen-rigged, and her keel was ninety feet long. 
She had a crew of sixty-six men, the most important of whom were 
Diego de Arana, a nephew of the Admiral's wife, who went as Grand 
Alguazil of the squadron, and four other royal functionaries, one of 
whom, Bernardin de Tapia, was a historiographer who tried in vain 
to be an historian. 

Next in rank came two lieutenants; Nino, a capital sailor and 
a man of great firmness; Juan Perez Matheos, whose head was as 



68 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

bad as his heart; Roldan, as worthless as he, and destined to betray 
the Admiral; then several officers of lower grade, among whom was 
Juan de la Cosa, afterwards celebrated by his hydrographic under- 
takings; then an interpreter, who spoke all languages except those 
which he would have to interpret; and finally two enthusiastic friends 
of Columbus, who were serving as volunteers, or, as they would now 
be termed, amateurs. 

Several of the crew were Genoese ; two were Portuguese, one an 
Irishman, and one an Englishman. Not one was from Palos; either 
because of Columbus' remembrance of the opposition which he had 
encountered, at the last moment, from the inhabitants of that city, or 
because the townsmen preferred serving under the orders of the Pin- 
zons, their compatriots. 

The Pinta and the Nina were decked only fore and aft, like 
most caravels. The elder of the brothers Pinzon commanded the 
former, having as lieutenant his brother, Francis-Martin, and as sur- 
o^eon, our old friend Garcia Hernandez, the friend of Perez de 
Marchena, and one of Columbus' first and warmest disciples. The 
crew of the Pinta consisted of thirty men. 

That of the Nina was but twenty-four strong; but by Columbus' 
own showing, and as the event proved, she could carry four times as 
many. The Nina was commanded by Vincent Yanez Pinzon. Like 
the Pinta, she was at first lateen-rigged, but afterwards the sails 
were changed to square ones. 

All the ships were provided with artillery according to their size, 
and with a year's provisions. Their equipment was such that the 
Admiral had declared them, as we have heard, well-adapted for the 
enterprise in hand Concerning one of them, however, he had enter- 
tained fears which were justified on the third day out. On the si.xth 



AT SEA. 69 

of August, when they were more than sixty leagues from Palos, a 
heavy surge struck the hehii of the P/n/a with such violence as to 
render it useless. This it is believed, was the fault of the ship- 
wrights, who hoped that this accident, which they foresaw must 
happen, would cause the abandonment of the expedition. The Ad- 
miral strongly suspected that the injury was not wholly due to the 
waves. He steered at once for the Canaries, by a reckoning opposed 
to that of the best sailors in the squadron, and dropped anchor off 
Teneriffe, after a rapid voyage. 

But though his superiority in nautical knowledge was now estab- 
lished, the inconvenience and danger of the stay were none the less 
great. The King of Portugal, who saw the honor of the enterprise 
passing to a rival monarch, had time to send out three caravels^ with 
orders to put every obstacle in the way of the voyage, and, if ne- 
cessary, to proceed to violence. The character of the Portuguese 
sovereign was well known to Columbus; but this new instance of his 
treachery was brought to light by one of those rencontres, so frequent 
in the history of the great discoverer, and in which he always recog- 
nized the manifest protection of Providence. 

The Piiita had been repaired, and the squadron amply furnished 
with fresh provisions, had set sail, in spite of the feeble and shifting 
breeze, when, opposite the island of Ferro, the Admiral learned from 
the Commander of a ship which had just left that island by what a 
danger he was threatened. The calm which kept him in the neigh- 
borhood of the enemy added to his peril. He was not a man to fear 
the shock of battle; but like all truly great men, he did not love 
danger for danger's sake; and the most glorious victory would in this 
case have so damaged his ships that they could not proceed on their 
enterprise. It was necessary at all hazards to avoid an engagement; 



70 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

though his crew would probably have welcomed it as the alternative 
of the dreaded voyage of discovery. To the stagnant sea and 
slueffish breeze vvas now added, to increase their iorebodini/s, tiie 
sight of an eruption Ironi the Peak ot Teneriffe, which vomited cas- 
cades of flame and black whirlwinds of smoke. 

To calm their tears, Columbus recalled to his crew the harmless 
eruptions of Etna and Vesuvius, which some ol them had seen, and 
bade them not to lose heart on account of the calm, but to put their 
trust in Him who maketh the wind to blow where He will ; and in 
fact, upon the mornmg of the second day the wind set in from the 
north-east, and had soon borne the three caravels out of reach ot the 
burning mountain, and far away trom the treacherous island. 

As to the piratical barks sent by the King of Portugal, Columbus 
knew well by experience that they would not dare to pursue him in 
the direction in which he was now sailing. Between him and them 
were already whitening the first billows of those immense and track- 
less seas of whom all the world but himself stood in awe. He had 
reached the limit where the boldest stopped; and to him it was but a 
point of departure tor the unknown. 

Here the voyage of discovery was really to commence. Here 
opened that great book on every page of which the imagination of 
mankind had displayed alike its longing and its horror tor the un- 
known, in emblems of pleasure or of fear, of sublimity or grotcsqucnc, 
according to the spirit of each age and generation. 

Greece had drawn upon its leaves, in a few classic outlines, the 
half-effaced imprint of her genius and beauty. The Orient of the 
Caliphs spread out there the artful confusion of its arabesques, its 
dogmas and its tales. India and ancient Egypt portrayed their jmo 
cessions of brute-gods and fish-gods, and flower-goddesses floating on 




THE PHANTOMS OF FEAR. 



PHA N TO M FR A R S. 



72, 



seas of milk and wine, from whence arose the fatal beautiful sphinx. 
Then came the Middle Age, and with its finger dipped in blood and 
ink, drew upon the pages myriads of spectres and demons ; and called 
its work, on all the charts of the time, the Sea of Darkness. 
On this sea. 



over which hung 
perpetual twilight, 
fading into dark- 
ness towards the 
West, wandered, 
swam, circled, or 
glided all the mon- 
strous children of 
Fear. The immense 
nautilus with mem- 
branous sails, which 
with one blow from 
its living oar could 
have capsized the 
Santa-Maria ; the 
sea-serpent with 
crest of cock, fifty 
leagues in lenofth: 
Homer's sirens, 
constantly pursued 
by the cruel water- 




THE SEA BISHOP AND THE MERMAIDS. 



monk {moine-maj-iii) in whom the Breton sailors still believe; and the 
fearful sea-bishop, with his phosphorescent mitre. Harpies and winged 
monsters skimmed the surface of this motionless sea, choosing their prey 



74 CIJRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

from the troops of sea-lions and tigers, of sea-elephants and hippo- 
campi, who grazed among the vast meadows of aquatic herbs, from 
. which no ship could have extricated herself. 

And even this was comparatively nothing; with skill and boldness, 
and great good fortune, one might perchance escape unharmed; but 
after evading the famous sea-unicorn, which with its spiral lance could 
have pierced the three caravels at a blow, there remained to be con- 
fronted foes and dangers too great for the strength of man. 

From the midst of this chaotic ocean rose a colossal hand, covered 
with hair and armed with claws; the hand of Satan, the Black Hand. 
Of this there could be no doubt, as this hand was portrayed on all 
the maps of the time. 

From the bottom of the watery abyss rose at regular intervals 
the mountainous back of the kraken, like a gatherinor island; an 
island, some said twice, others thrice as large as Sicily. This immense 
polyp, furnished with innumerable suckers, any one of which could 
have stopped short the Pinta as she ran before the wind, rose to 
the surface every day, spouting from its nostrils two columns of 
water si.x times as high as the Giralda of Seville. Then by a tremen- 
dous inhalation of air, it created a wliirlwind in which the Ni7ia would 
have spun around like a top. But the poor kraken was not suffered 
to disport itself on the surface of the waters. A hand of iron, the 
Black Hand, plunged it again into the abyss, and the double movement 
of this living lungs of the globe caused the phenomena of the tides. 

The kraken was not malignant ; but it could not be denied that 
his enormous dimensions made him somewhat inconvenient for Colum- 
bus' three little ships to encounter. But if this danger could be 
avoided, and if the Arch-fiend did not dare to lay his Black Hand 
upon the squadron whose flag bore the holy emblem of our Saviour 



FEARS AND TRADIT/OXS. 75 

on the Cross, and wliose patron saint was the Holy Virgin, what escape 
could there be from the terrible double-headed eaele. with wino-s of 
such enormous circumference; or from the formidable roc, whom an 
Arabian traveller had seen carrying in its claws a vessel manned by a 
hundred and fifty men ? " 

Nor was this traveller the only witness to the existence of this 
fearful bird. Two sailors on board of the Pinfa. who had long been 
prisoners in the hands of the infidels, had known at Samarcand the 
famous Sindbad, celebrated through all the east ; and had heard him 
swear that no reward could tempt him to essay the Sea of Darkness, 
the home of the monster, where it lay in wait for its human prey. 

These fables and others like them, for which the sailor of our 
day has substituted Mother Carey's chickens and the Phantom Ship, 
were not regarded by Columbus with the absolute disbelief of a 
modern. He was even surprised that the sailors, in spite of their 
superstition, had consented to a voyage through these regions of 
gloom. He was well nigh sure that the event would soon dissipate 
these illusions; and as he sailed westward, the sights and sounds of 
the voyage were assuredly the reverse of diabolic. 

Before any of his comrades had noted the difference between the 
Eastern and Western hemispheres, Columbus, gifted with powers both 
of keen observation and just refiection, had felt that he was In a New 
World. 

A temperature less variable, and constantly refreshed by a light 
breeze; an atmosphere impregnated with the life-giving smells of the 
sea, and with a magnetic current whose power was soon to become 
manifest over the needle of the compass; waters salter, more crystal- 
line, and more phosphorescent ; skies more glowing by day, and 
revealing ever new stars by night: these were some of the phenomena 



76 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

which gladdened his poet-heart. He hardly slept; but, sitting or 
standing on the poop-railing, his eyes on the astrolabe or the tiller, 
with the lead or the pen in his hand, throwing his soul into every 
detail, wondering, calculating, praying, working, writing, he kept his 
log-book with the punctuality of a professional pilot. 

Indeed, after the 9th of September, he kept two logs. One of 
them, full of e.xact and graphic detail, was reserved for his own eye. 
In the other, which was open to the officers and crew, their distance 
from the Old World was systematically understated. 

This precaution had become indispensable. The superstitious 
terrors so promptly banished by the smiling calm of sea and sky were 
succeeded by other forebodings, to which the imperfect science of that 
day could find no answer. 

Even the more enlightened members of the expedition, such as 
Garcia Hernandez, the brothers Pinzon and Juan de la Cosa, who had 
no fears of the difficulty of the homeward voyage, caused by the con- 
ve.xity of the globe, and who did not show the apprehensions of many 
theologians and some few among the sailors, that, on passing a cer- 
tain point, they would fall into the moon, by the displacement of their 
centre of gravity: — even these men had a lingering fear of hindrance 
from "that pear-shaped protuberance to the northwest of the Ocean 
Sea, at the summit of which was the Terrestrial Paradise." Columbus 
himself shared the belief on which this fear was based. 

An additional cause of apprehension was the steadiness of the 
wind from the East, which seemed to be characteristic of these lon- 
gitudes, and which would render the return exceedingly difficult. 

Moreover, of the many evil reports which had been spread con- 
cerning the Western Hemisphere, some might still be true ; that 
Grassy Sea, for instance, vaguely described by the ancients, might 



VARIATION OF THE COMPASS. jy 

not the banks of marine herbs along which they had already coasted 
be only an oudying district of it? 

Finally, the compass itself— that marvellous guide, recendy dis- 
covered, but already established as infallible— the compass itself had 
varied! How could they trust themselves henceforward, in countries 
where the laws of Nature ceased to operate? 

Fortunately, Columbus had an answer for everything. The vari- 
ation in the compass had taken him by surprise, and for a while he 
had kept it a secret; and by the time when he saw it discovered, 
his readiness had suggested to him a daring and plausible explana- 
tion. " It was not that the magnetic needle had lost its virtue, but 
that the polar star had altered its position in the heavens." 

It Columbus himself had been the dupe of his explanation^ we 
might be pardoned a smile ; but we find that in his note-book, he 
has stated, in a scientific manner, the knotty question which, before 
his crew, he cut like an Alexander, 

But, as we have already said, he is rather to be compared to 
the son of Laertes than to the son of Philip. Like the wise pro- 
tege of Minerva, he diligently practised the maxim : " Help thyself, 
and Heaven will help thee!' His explanation of the curious behaviour 
of the compass was equal to any of the artifices by which Nemo 
imposed on the stupid Polyphemus, and his device of a double log- 
book leaves far behind the most subtle stratagems of Ulysses. For 
the rest, like the wily Greek, he was in command of men so far 
his inferiors in courage and intellitjence that he was obliged to treat 
them like children. They would have become unmanageable, as it 
was, but for the strokes of good fortune which he had deserved by 
his self-reliance. 

All had gone well during the first days of the cruise, from the 




■jd, CHRIS TOPIIIiR CO L UMB US. 

time of Icavint^ the Canaries. 
Terror had given place to an 
overvveenino: confidence, which 
exaggerated the proximity of the 
strange countries they hatl come 
to seek, and the ease of ap- ^ 
proaching them. 

From the 14th of September, 
the day following that on which 
had been noticed the deflection 




THE DECK OF THE SANTA-MARIA 



A RAY OF HOPE. 79 

ot the needle, tlie atmosphere became so warm and balmy, and the 
mornings especially so soft and radiant, that Columbus compared them 
to Andalusian weather; nothing was wanting, he said, but the 
nightingale's song. The nights, too, were delicious. The stars shone 
clear, and there was a constant apparition of brilliant meteors. One 
of them, by its size and the unusual length of its vaporous wake, gave 
the sailors some affright ; but the Admiral saw in it a wondrous branch 
of fire, a celestial palm, the presage of an approaching triumph. 

Numerous indications seemed to confirm the omen. On one 
day, the sailors aboard the Nina would see a sea-swallow or a ring- 
tail flying past ; and it was well known that such birds never were 
met with more than twenty-five leagues from shore. The next day, 
birds of the same species would be seen flying westward ; and 
Martin Alonzo Pinzon would set all sail in the direction of their 
flight, hoping that the Pinta would be first to make that land which 
was still so far distant. 

The further they sailed, the more did the signs of land increase. 
Singing birds came to perch on the yards and in the rigging ot the 
masts, which they took for floating trees. Their twittering did not 
affect Columbus alone. The hearts of his crew opened to the pre- 
sence of smiling hope. 

The marine plants now were covered with living shell-fish. One 
morning, a number of boobies, flying towards the south-east, passed 
over the Santa Maria, and the Admiral, sharing the common illusion, 
called attention to the supposed fact that all the birds of this species 
sleep on land, and seek the sea at daybreak in search of iood ; 
there must, then, be land to the north-west; but in spite of these 
indications, and of the prayers of his followers that he would change 
his course in reliance upon them, he continued to pursue the route 



8o CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

to India. In vain they insisted, in vain they pressed him: "The 
weather is fair," said he, " and, if it please God, we will see all this 
on the way home." 

As he pronounced these last words with the confidence which 
never deserted him, several sailors shook their heads in sign of 
doubt ; and among- them the lieutenant Matheos, whom Columbus 
had already learned to consider as the worst of the crew. To the 
Admiral's stern look he ventured to make answer that the persist- 
ence of these trade-winds, a phenomenon then so little known as 
not to have received a name, would certainly render their return 
impossible. 

Columbus, according to his custom, made no answer, except to 
repeat " with God's help." The lieutenant smiled ; but not long 
afterwards, he was put to shame by the arising of a strong breeze 
from the west. Soon, however, a new cause for apprehension arose. 
The ships had now entered into the region of those enormous banks 
of fucus, whose surface is seven times as large as the kingdom of 
Spain. Encumbered as they were by this stagnant ocean, they were 
still further embarrassed by a dead calm, which totally arrested their 
progress, and threatened them prospectively with all the horrors of 
famine. 

This trial of courage was doubly strenuous, for the fucus-banks 
had figured vaguely among the traditions of the Sea of Darkness. 
But, once again. Providence came to the help of the great navigator, 
against the lamenting, protesting, half-threatening Matheos ; while yet 
no breeze was blowing, of a sudden the sea was moved into billows, 
as if its sluggish depths were stirred by a submarine tempest. 

The first effect of this jjhenomenon was frightful enough ; for 
even Matheos, who believed not in God, believed in the devil ; he 



MATHEGS CONFUTED. gj 

believed not in the genius of Columbus, but he believed in the kra- 
ken, and trembled at the vision of the Black Hand outlined against 
the red sky of sunset. 




THE CONSPIRATORS. 



But soon the breeze began to blow from the north west ; the 
prows of the caravels broke their weedy chains ; the litde fleet was 



82 C/IRIS TOP HER COL UMB US. 

sailing- through a clear expanse of ocean ; the crew hailed with joy 
new indications of the Promised Land ; the conspirator, Matheos, 
laughed at his fears ; and the Admiral wrote in his book these sim- 
ple words, fortunately preserved by Las Casas : " Thus hath the great 
ocean done me service in need ; a thing never before seen save in 
the times of the Jews, when the Egyptians set forth in pursuit of 
Moses, who delivered the children of Israel from bondage." 

But the Spaniards of Columbus, like God's people of old, were 
ungrateful and hard to guide, and prone to regret the flesh-pots of 
Egypt. No sooner were they delivered from the superstitious fears 
which had beset them since their departure, than their restless and 
suspicious minds turned to the protracted length of the voyage, and 
their fearful distance from home. 

And nevertheless, on the first of October, while they believed 
themselves but five hundred and eighty-four leagues from the Canary 
Islands, they were in reality seven hundred ami seven leagues away. 
Columbus had made more headway than he had expected at the 
outset; he believed that only one day's sail lay between him and 
India. 

His error arose from a false estimate of the diameter of the 
earth ; but a large portion of his associates suspected him already of 
wilful deception. Their high opinion of his intelligence forbade them 
to believe that he himself had been so widely astray in his computa- 
tions ; and they intimated that he had knowingly exaggerated the 
facility of his enterprise. Appearances were certainly against him ; 
and his coolness in face of the repeated disappointments which en- 
raged or discouraged the most valiant among the crew, lerrt counte- 
nance to the general suspicion. With less heroism, perhaps, he would 
have inspired more confidence; but greatness of heart is a quality 



CONSPIRACY. 83 

difficult to conceal. The world was in arms ao^ainst this noble soul ; 
and the combat was one which, on a smaller scale, is waeed in the 
bosom of each of us. On one side was a hero, a eenius, the cham- 
pion of Faith, of Science, and of Light; one of those serene dragon- 
slayers of whom Mythology made gods, and Christianity arch-angels ; 
on the other was Matter, the eternal Typhon, with its blind, violent 
forces, which found recruits even in the camp of its adversary. 

And the most active recruiter was Matheos. Apart from the 
prejudices which have clustered around his name, impartial historians 
have testified to his perfidy: and we cannot doubt that he was the 
soul of the conspiracy against the Admiral. 

This conspiracy e.\isted in every one of the vessels, apparently 
with the connivance of the brothers Pinzon, who did nothing to crush 
it. It showed itself at first by the relaxation of discipline. The Ad- 
miral was still obeyed, though with visible repugnance; but his name 
was bandied with the grossest equivalents of the word impostor. He 
was openly murmured against; and they even went so far as to beg 
him to go no further in an enterprise which would lead to inevitable 
destruction. 

He resisted with his usual firmness ; and when the malcontents 
had given up all hope of shaking his resolution, they began to conspire 
his death. It was agreed that, at a day and hour fixed, he should 
be quietly [accortamente) cast into the sea. 

"This dreamer," they would say on their return, "fell into the 
water, like the astrologer of the fable, while he was watching the course 
of the stars." 

These details, unhappily, are authenticated ; but it does not appear 
that there was any open attempt to carry out the criminal design. 
The fact of the conspiracy is well established, but the story of an open 



84 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

rebellion has been confuted: and with it must fall to the ground the 
legend of a compromise accepted, or rather asked by Columbus. 

Trois jours, leur tlit Colomb, et je vous 
doniie tin monde. 

"But three days," said Columbus to them, "and I will give you a 
world." 

Columbus never said anything of the kind, as any one will know 
who has had the honor of commanding a ship. 

Against this felicitous but improbable verse, we have the absence 
of contemporary testimony, and the silence of the Admiral, whose 
Memoirs barely mention the insubordination, but say not a word of 
any revolt. 

Yet it might well have come to this point, had not convincing tes- 
timony of their approach to land saved the expedition, and with it 
humanity, from the shame of a crime which would have long retarded 
the progress of the race. 

On Thursday, the i i th of October, there was found floating in the 
sea a branch with flowers and red fruit, antl, for still more cogent 
proof, a stick cut and curiously carved by the hand ot man. 

The day passed in joy and congratulation. Columbus declared 
that land would be in sight on the morrow. Night came at last, and 
through the thick darkness, the Admiral himself was the first to 
perceive in the west a light, to which he called the attention of a few 
in whom he trusted. 

Then he brought together the crew, and with feelings which may 
be imagined, he ordered the Salve Regiua to be sung. 

The caravels were sailing slowly and with great caution, except 



LAND! 85 

the Pinta, which was still under full sail, when from her deck a cannon 
shot thundered across the profound silence. 

Land had been signalled by a sailor of the Pinta named Juan 
Rodriguez Bermejo. 

The Admiral fell upon his knees ; and with his hands raised to 
heaven, and tears streaming down his cheeks, his officers and sailors 
kneeling around him, he solemnly repeated the Te Dann. 

Then, having prayed, he rose to his feet ; while all the crew, still 
kneeling, with Matheos at their head, kissed the hands of the Admiral, 
the Grand Admiral, Don Christopher Columbus, Viceroy and Per- 
petual Governor of all the lands discovered in the West. 




TE DEUM. 



. -K-^- 



w 













■■'-.¥p'^ 






i^v 



CHAPTER V. 











Jac!./: isiltn tjicC 



MAKING READY TO LAND. 



CHAPTER V. 



The rest of the night Avas passed on board of tlie three 
caravels In a manner which may be easily conceived. Few could 
sleep ; they were kept awake by the excitement and pleasure of the 
arrival. Some of our readers may remember the feeling with which, 



89 



90 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

after a Ion_f^ and perilous voyage, they greeted the shores of a foreign 
land ; antl these longitudes were for nine-tenths of the Admiral's 
companions a region as marvellous as the Milky Way. 

The ships, as a matter of precaution, were brought to. Each 
man was furbishing up his best. Uniforms more magnificent by far 
than any modern dress, were taken out of their chests ; arms were 
burnished and put in order, more for occupation than from any 
supposed necessity. The ships were put into fighting condition by the 
ready hands of men who cared little for the dangers against which 
discipline bade them prepare. Victorious over Nature and the power 
of the Adversary, they feared not what man could do. The very 
sailors whom imaginary fears had almost driven to a terrible crime 
would now have attacked the Grand Khan and all his armies, at the 
bidding of their Admiral. The first to sing his praises was Matheos, 
and all the crew joined in the chorus. With such a leader, they feared 
no enemy of flesh and blood. 

It must be said, in e.xculpation of these worthy sailors (excepting 
only Matheos), that we should not judge them either by the standard 
of their leader, or according to our modern ideas. They were no 
wiser than their time ; and they might well falter before the super- 
stitious phantoms which haunted even the learned men of the fifteenth 
century. Except by being the equals of Columbus, how could they 
have understood him, so long as his brow was not yet crowned by 
that aureole of success which to the herd is the only proof of a legiti 
mate royalty ? 

We need not, then, be less maenanimous than their leader, who 
pardoned them even before they asked his forgiveness. What struck 
them the most on that memorable night was his unchanging serenity. 
His jo)', indeed, was great, but with it was mmgled no surprise, and no 



DAYBREAK. 91 

mean satisfaction in his personal safety. In trial and in triumph his 
comrades found him equal to himself To the mutineers he had been 
calm and severe; to the repentant and submissive, he was equally- 
calm, but benignant and paternal. 

At daybreak the fleet began to move. It glided before a light 
breeze over water so transparent that the snags which rose toward 
the surface were easily avoided. A road-stead, or rather a gently 
sloping coast, soon offered them a safer landing-place. The Admiral 
bade them steer towards it. He soon perceived a small island, so 
flat and narrow that a practised eye like his own could embrace 
almost its entire circumference. 

The surface details, at this early morning hour, were not so easy 
to perceive. A light mist still concealed the colors of objects and 
veiled their outlines. Great meadows, wet and shining with dew, 
encircled a lake shimmering with blue and rose-color, with pearly re- 
flections through the transparent veil of mist. Night and day min- 
gled their mysterious charm to give to this enscmb/e ot harmonious 
contrasts an ineffable serenity, the soft primitive aspect of Para- 
dise ! 

Harder hearts than theirs would have .been moved by such a 
sight, and by the expectation of the radiant scenes to be revealed 
by the rising sun. 

At length the Titan arose, inundating with his light the hemi- 
sphere where he was still worshipped as a god, and where the em- 
blem of Salvation, the sun of the Word, that light which lightens 
every man who cometh into this world, was soon to overturn the 
smoking altars, red with human blood. 

His first beams fell upon a solitude. Meadows, lagoons dotted 
here and there with islets of sand, tall clumps of beautiful trees, but 



92 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

no animals, wild or tame, no human habitations, no trace of culti- 
vated soil or ot industry. 

Soon, however, on approaching nearer, the navigators distin- 
guished several of the inhabitants, totally naked, who, at the sight of 
the ships, retired cautiously into the thickets. 

They cast anchor, and let down the ship's boats. Columbus, fol- 
lowed by his chief of staff, like himself in the full insignia of rank, 
descended the ship's side, and, a few moments afterwards, was stand- 
ing on the long-sought land, which had for so many ages been waiting 
for his comins:. He knelt down and kissed the solid earth with tlie 
ardor of a lover. 

The voyage had lasted from the third of August, 149:2, to the 
twelfth of October of the same year; seventy days, of which about 
thirty-five were lost by the delay at the Canaries. 

Columbus did not forget, when he took possession of the New 
World, what he owed, first to Providence, and then to the Kingdom 
of Spain. He addressed his comrades with that impassioned elo- 
quence whose influence was confessed even by his enemies, and con- 
cluded by a prayer to the Almighty which has become, as it were, 
official, and has been repeated since on the occasion of every new 
discovery made by the Spaniards in the Old and the New World. 
Then he planted in the earth the standard of the cross, gave the 
island the name of San Salvador, and drawing his sword, declared 
that he took possession of it "in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, 
for the crown of Castile." 

Instantly thereupon, all his assistants, with his chief of staff at 
their head, proclaimed him Grand Admiral, Viceroy and Governor- 
General, and solemnly pledged him their faithful .service, beseeching 
him to foroet their wrone-doina. 




IN THE NAME OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST FOR THE CROWN OF CASTILE. 



FRIDA V. 55 

At that moment, having recovered from the fear into which they 
had been thrown by so extraordinary a spectacle, several natives 
approached ; the welcome which they received soon attracted others. 
There was mutual confidence and kindness between them and the 
crew; exchange of presents, eating together and talking together by 
signs, games, . dancing and visits aboard began, to cease only with 
nightfall. Thus finished in pleasure and festivity the day which, for 
the poor natives, was to be followed by so many years of misery and 
oppression. 

It was on a Friday that Columbus set sail from Palos : it was on 
a Friday also that he saw in the morning light the green shores of 
San Salvador unroll themselves to his longing eyes. Those who see 
in the discovery of America an event which brought misery on both 
worlds may therefore find a confirmation for their superstitious dislike 
of the day ; but to those who rejoice in the union of the hemispheres 
under a common civilization and a common Christianity, Friday must 
henceforth lose its terrors. 

Strange to say, this precursor of the New World, this land where 
civilization deposited the first germ of her bitter fruit, was first also 
to be neglected and forgotten. It was inaccurately designated even 
in the first map of the new discoveries, a map prepared by one of 
the companions of the great navigator. 

There is but one explanation for this curious fact, and that ex- 
planation is a sordid one ; San Salvador contained no gold. 

Long after its discovery, when there was an effort, in the inter- 
ests of science, to identify its precise position, some thought it one- of 
the Turks' Islands ; others the greater Inagua, others again the lesser 
Inagua, and most located it as Cat's Island ; for such is the noble name 
with which the English have rebaptized the island of San Salvador. 



96 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

Thus was it for centuries, so that in 1836 the author of Cosmos 
remarked: "History has carefully preserved the surnames and Chris- 
tian names of the sailors who lay claim to have been the first dis- 
coverers of a portion of the New World ; yet we are hardly able to 
identify the very lands with which their names are thus connected!" 

" Fortunately," he added, " I find myself able to remove these 
doubts." And thereupon he offered a version of the facts which the 
weight of authority justly attached to his name caused to be generally 
accepted, but which we are now able to supplement by the knowledge 
of this generation. The definitive solution of this problem has re- 
cently been given by M. Adolph de Varnhagen. 

The island whose aboriginal name of Guanahari was changed by 
Columbus to San Salvador is that which appears in our maps as 
Mayaguani. 

And thus has been fixed at last the geography of this wandering 
island. Like the floating Delos, the birthplace of Apollo and Diana, 
it has borne more than one name. And who knows whether the 
graceful myth of Latona is not a veil cast by a poet over the harsh 
doubts of some ante-historic critic? 

For, according to this poet, it was not science which went astray, 
but the island of Delos, Poetry is the Grasshopjaer, and Science the 
Ant ; and the miserly Ant has often received, without a word of 
thanks, such gifts from the Grasshopper. 

Not long ago the Grasshopper told me a story which I cannot 
refrain from introducing here ; trusting to the indulgence of my 
readers to believe that I shall fit it into my history. 

Last Summer, in the middle of July, I was lying under an olive 
tree in my native Provence, with no other company than some thou- 
sands of grasshoppers. They were singing together, and tlieir song 



A FABLE. 97 

was, " Drive dull care away." Drunk with light and warmth, they 
sang to every passer-by the triumphal hymn of Summer. The tune 
awakened in me only soft thoughts and undefined images ; I saw 
Aurora and her roses, and her tears ot dew, and her old husband 
metamorphosed into a grasshopper, and I asked myself whether 
Science, which has taken from us so many fine and charming things, 
is worth the poetry which gave them. 

And this question I was about to answer to the disadvantage of 
the Ant, when a last doubt made me turn to the Grasshopper. 

The Grasshopper answered me in the language and after the 
manner of yEsop ; and this, without the rhythm or the charm of the 
original, this is what it sang : 

"When Jason had resolved on the conquest of the Golden Fleece, 
he set his comrades at work to build the ship which was to carry 
them to Colchis. Seeing that they put little heart into the labor, he 
promised them that, when the ship was ready to launch, Minerva 
would bestow on it the gift of speech ; that it would give them sage 
counsel on the voyage, and would charm away the long hours on 
ship-board by songs worthy of the Gods," 

" But when all the conditions seemed fulfilled ; when the ship, 
rigged, armed and manned, seemed ready for the launch, it remained 
motionless as a stone and mute as a fish; and the Argonauts mur- 
mured against their chief. Then Minerva appeared to them." 

"Jason did not deceive you," said she; "have you not forgotten 
some necessary equipment of your vessel ? " 

" Miperva is right," cried the crew with one voice ; " we have 
forgotten the sails ! " 

And the sails, which were on land at the maker's, were brought 
and made fast, and stretched to the breeze. 



98 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

But the Argo spoke not a word ; and Minerva repeated her 
question, "Have you not forgotten something?" 

"Freshwater sailors that we are," cried the crew, "we have for- 
gotten the ballast ! " 

And when the ballast was brought and put in place, the ship 
began to flutter her pinions ; her prow swelled out like the silver 
breast of a swan ; and gliding lightly over the waters, she thrice cried, 
" Forward ! " 

The moral of this fable is that ballast is as necessary to a ship, 
and to a story-teller, as sails. One is the motive power, the other 
keeps us in the straight path of progress. 

Without the sails, or wings (for they are all one) my story of 
a hero who was at once ant and grasshopper, savant and poet, would 
never have risen aljove technical details ; but without these details, 
which serve so well as ballast, it would run on without substance or 
subject-matter, and the Ant would have good reason to mock at the 
Grasshopper. 

The history of Columbus and of the discovery of the New World 
is the histor)- of a theory confirmed by the facts ; the theory and the 
facts being alike scientific. Hence arises the impossibility of making 
of it a work of imagination, a poem ; and even did the subject per- 
mit, the Muse would recoil before the mass and the precise detail 
of the documents written by the hero's own hand. If Achilles, Ulysses 
and their comrades had left Memoirs as complete as those of Colum 
bus, of Las Casas, or of Ferdinand Columbus, not to mention the 
letters and manuscripts which fill the archives of Simancas, we should 
have neither Iliad nor Odyssey; a misfortune involved in the nature 
of things. 



HIS OWN NARRATIVE. 99 

So that, even in my easy narrative, I feel sometimes reproached 
for introducing any touch of my own fancy, when I remember what 
a mine of wealth Columbus himself has left in the fresh and circum- 
stantial relation of his impressions, when, with the same hand which 
imprinted upon bronze, as we shall see hereafter, lamentations worthy 
of Job, he set down the smallest details of his arrival in the New 
World. In my opinion, the best history of Christopher Columbus 
would be his collected writings, accompanied by a commentary which 
one might read or pass over according to his pleasure. 

The few pages which follow will give an idea of what that his- 
tory would be. We shall find in them, in all its freshness, the sum 
total of the impression produced, each upon the other, by two branches 
of the human race separated by an infinite gulf of time. 

"Wishing above all things," says Columbus, "to win the friend- 
ship of the natives of diis island, and being certain upon seeing them 
that they would trust us more entirely, and would be better disposed 
to our holy religion, if we used towards them rather gentleness than 
force, I gave to some among them bonnets of divers colors, and 
strings of glass beads, from which they made for themselves necklaces. 
I added thereunto other trifles, which so excited their joy and grati- 
tude that we could not forbear wondering at them. When they saw 
us returned to our ships, they cast themselves into the water and 
swam to us, to offer us parroquets, balls of cotton thread, javelins 
and many other objects, in exchange for which we gave them glass 
beads, hawks'-bells and other things. They took what we gave them, 
and offered us all they had, which truly was very little. 

" The men and the women are naked as when they came from 
their mother's womb. They are well made, and with pleasant faces. 
Their hair is as coarse as horsehair and falls over the forehead to 



lOO 



CHR I S TO PHER C L UMB US. 



the eyebrows. They let it flow down behind in a long lock. * * * 
This hair is not curly. * =•= * These men arc truly of a noble 




PULI-ING BACK. 



race. Their foreheads and their heads are larger than those of the 
other natives whom I have been able to see in m\' voyages ; their 
eygs arc large and beautiful, their legs very straight, * ■"' '" their 



DESCRIPTION OF THE NATIVES. loi 

stature great, * * * their movements graceful. Some of them 
are painted of a dart: color, but by nature they are of the same hue 
as the natives of the Canary Islands. Many paint themselves white 
or red, or of some other color. Sometimes the whole body is 
painted, sometimes the face or the eyes, or even the nose only. 
They possess no arms resembling ours, and are even ignorant of 
their use. When I showed them our sabres, they took them by the 
blades, and cut their fingers. They possess no iron. Their javelins 
are sticks in which are inserted fish teeth, or some other hard and 
pointed bodies. 

" Observing that many had scars on their bodies, I asked them 
by signs how and by whom they had been wounded: they answered 
in the same way that the inhabitants of the neighboring islands often 
attacked them, for the purpose of carrying them away as captives, 
and that these wounds had been received in defending themselves. 
I doubted not that the inhabitants of the mainland tried to enslave 
them; for they were of a nature to prove faithful and devoted ser- 
vants. They repeat quickly and readily what they hear, and could, I 
believe, easily be converted to Christianity, for they belong to no 

especial sect. 

"At daybreak on Saturday, October T3th, we saw running along 
the shore many young men of good stature. * * * They ap- 
proached my ship in canoes made of a single tree-trunk, and fashioned 
in a manner truly surprising, considering the poverty of their means. 
Some of these canoes could hold from forty to forty-five men, others 
were of less size, and some so small as to contain but one man. 
They have for an oar a kind of baker's shovel, which they manage 
very skilfully. When one of these canoes upsets, they swim around 
it rio-ht it ao-ain, and bail out the water in it with calabashes, which 



I02 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

they carry slung- around their bodies for the purpose. * * * Ob- 
servingr that many were adprned with a httle pellet of gold, worn in 
a hole ni the nose, I succeeded in learning, always through signs, 
that by sailing to the south we should discover a country whose king 
possessed huge vases of gold and a great quantity of the pure metal. 
=!= V Having thereupon resolved to direct my voyage thither, on 
the morrow afternoon, I invited them to accompany me ; but they re- 
fused, and I understood that from this country, of which they were 
speaking, e.xpeditions often came to attack them. * * * The in- 
habitants of this island are friendly; it is true that, tempted by the 
strange things we showed them, and having nothing to offer in ex- 
change, they will steal them and jump overboard with them; but 
they willingly give all they have for the smallest trifles of ours, even 
for pieces of the ship or of broken glass ; I saw one of them give, 
in exchange for three of our smallest coins, nearly thirty pounds of 
cotton thread. =•' * * This is one of the products of this island ; 
as I did not wish to stay there long, I was not able to learn all of 
them. For the same reason, and because I desire to reach Cipango, 
time fails me to ascertain whence the inhabitants of this island have 
obtained the gold which they wear in their noses. But the night is 
come, and they are all gone back to land in their canoes." 

As he had resolved, Columbus undertook the next day to e.xplore 
the coasts of San Salvador. He found everywhere among the natives 
the same welcome and the same customs. In some few places, they 
possessed huts roughly constructed in the shape of tents, delicious 
orchards and vegetable gardens; and in these gardens, "the most 
beautiful which he had ever seen," copious springs of fresh water 
and, as he characteristically added, "stones fit to build churches with." 

The inhabitants, swimming or rowing out to the ships, pressed 



SANTA MARIA DE LA CONCEPTION. 103 

him to land ; but the fear of hidden reefs made him keep to the 
channel, and he soon found himself surrounded by such a number of 
islands, that he knew not which of them to touch at ; " his eyes," he 
says, "were never weary of admiring the verdure, so beautiful and so 
different from ours, and such a sweet and pleasant smell came from 
the ground that it was the most agreeable thing in the world." 

He determined at last to land on the island which seemed the 
largest; and took possession after the accustomed form; as at San 
Salvador, he raised the standard of the cross and gave this second 
island the name of Santa Maria de la Conception. Finding there 
neither gold nor anything else which would keep him, he continued 
his explorations by landing on an island which, in honor of the 
Kincr of Aracjon, he named Ferdinanda. Here he found occasion for 
remarks in his usual piquant style : " In manners, in language and in 
every other respect," says he, " the inhabitants of Ferdinanda are like 
those of the other islands, except that they wear some clothing, and 
are less shy and more cunning. * * * They can drive a bargain 
better than the others. I found no trace of religion among them, and 
I believe that they would readily become Chrisdans, for they have 
great intelligence. 

"The fish in these islands are wonderfully different from ours. 
Some of them are shaped like cocks, and their colors the brightest 
conceivable, blue, yellow and red ; all so marvellous that there is no 
one alive but would take the greatest pleasure in the sight. * * * 

"This island is very green; its surface is level and fertile. I 
saw on it many trees, some like those of Furope, but most of them 
as different as day from night. Thus, for instance, on one of these 
trees, one branch would have leaves like those of the reed, and an- 
other like those of the mastic ; and these trees which combine five or 



I04 



CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 



six different forms are not grafted, one tree upon another. On the 
contrary they grow and lloiirish, in tlie wild condition, on the moun- 
tains and in the forests." 



^'•*:^%fMMy^^^^i> %k 




FTCHTING THE IGUANA. 



This last observation, which was of course a mistake, is readily 
explained b)- the nniUltude of climbing and parasitic plants peculiar 



THE ISLAND ISABELLA. 105 

to the flora of the New World. We need not regret the ingenuous 
error, since it has given us a description of the opulent vegetation of 
the tropics not unworthy of a Chateaubriand, a Cooper or a Humboldt. 
A sight still more wonderful was soon presented to him by a 
new island, whose beauty induced him to name it Isabella. Its inhab- 
itants called it Saomcto. It was the most important he had yet 
touched at. He found in it large forests, spreading lakes, and birds 
of more brilliant color, more varied form, and sweeter sone. 

o 

Here also he met beasts of considerable size ; among them the 
iguana, a sort of gigantic lizard, whose resemblance to a crocodile, o; 
rather to the contemporary pictures of a crocodile, caused it to be 
mistaken for that animal. To encourage his men, who were always 
frightened by the unknown, Columbus attacked the creature without 
hesitation ; rushed on it, sword in hand, chased it to the lake and 
soon made an end of it. The skin, which was carried back to Europe, 
was seven feet long. The modern ig-uana does not attain such di- 
mensions. 

Columbus must have smiled more than once over this trophy, 
when he discovered that this fearful-looking monster, with its enor- 
mous goitre, its long and muscular tail, its spine serrated from end to 
end, and its sharp, fle.xile claws, is a saurian as gentle as our com- 
mon wall-lizard, and such a friend to men that he makes no objection 
to being eaten by them. 

But neither this easy victory, nor other more trying tests of 
courage, nor the encounter of a multitude of novel objects, which at 
every step gave new occupation to his mind and to his senses; 
nothing, in a word, which would have arrested or delayed an ordinary 
man, could make Columbus forget the practical object of his enter- 
prise, nor the promises which had obtained for him the protection of 



io6 CHRISTOPHER CO LV MB US. 

the Two Kings. The gold which had been their motive in under- 
taking such a scheme, which was to repay them for their cooperation, 
and to defray the cost of a crusade against the infidels ; this was his 
constant pursuit. 

The indications of its existence grew more and more encourag- 
ing. The natives wore larger bits of the precious metal, and one of 
them promised Columbus to point out to him either a vein or a con- 
siderable deposit. But on this occasion, the Admiral had his first 
experience of the tendency of the race to falsehood, or at least to an 
exaggeration which is with them less the result of calculation than of 
their lively imagination and defective means of expression. 

The man having failed to keep his word, Columbus set sail 
again, after a two days' delay; and so litde was he discouraged that 
he wrote to the Kings: "Soon — I am confident of it — soon shall I 
reach the very places where gold groivs." In fact, he was not very 
far from Mexico; but the bloody conquest of "the place where gold 
grows " was reserved for another. 

He did discover, however, on the twenty-eighth of October, the 
pearl of the seas, the Queen of the Antilles, the lovely island of Cuba; 
whose marvels made him forget in a moment the most charming 
natural scenes he had yet beheld. 

The superiority of Cuba was not only in the luxuriance of its 
vegetation and in its wonderful fiora ; what struck Columbus most 
forcibly were the vast dimensions of the natural features. Rivers, 
lakes, forests and mountains had an aspect of size, of force and of 
majesty which attracted and enchained the mind. Columbus con- 
fessed that he could hardly tear himself away from this world of 
surprise and enchantment. 

The names which he trave to die striking features of the island 



CUBA. 107 

bore witness to his feelings of admiration. Most of these names have 
been changed, not always to advantage. He called the island itself 
yuana, a softer appellation than its present. His Puerto-Santo (Holy- 
Port) has become Baracoa; his Cape of Palms, Jlloon River, Ocean 
River have all been rebaptized. 

Upon his approach to the latter river, the Rio de los Ma7-es, the 
Indians whom he had on board informed him that not far off was a 
place named Bohio, where, according to their statement, gold, pearls 
and spices abounded. They spoke also of one-eyed men ; of a cer- 
tain island Mantinino, inhabited only by women ; of men with heads 
like those of does, who ate the flesh and drank the blood of other 
men. The first of these stories must be ranked with the legends 
of Herodotus. The second had some foundation, for there was an 
island in these regions inhabited by women only for certain months 
of the year. As to the dog-headed anthropophagi, the worst part of 
the tale was but too true. These monsters, whose practices dis- 
credited their human form, were the very cannibals dreaded by the 
Lucayan islanders, and called by them Caniba. 

Columbus, who all the while believed himself near the coast of 
Asia, did not doubt that the Caniba or Kaniba were the subjects of 
the Grand Khan ; and it may be said that many etymologists have 
drawn as great conclusions from like evidence. He sent into the in- 
terior an embassy to that sovereign, who reported on their return 
that they had found, instead of Ouinsay and the Grand Khan, a vil- 
lage of fifty huts, containing a savage but handsome tribe, who wel- 
comed the Spaniards, and like die Indians generally, regarded them 
as sfods descended from above. 

Some of them inhaled, through a double tube applied to the 
nostrils, a dried herb which they called tabago. To this peculiarity 



io8 



CJIRJS TOP HER COL UMB US. 



Columbus paid but little attention ; he could not foresee that the use 
of this herb would one day spread over the whole world, and would 
prove a source of immense wealth for the inhabitants of the island. 



<sJ<^tsK*^';o5, 







A SAVAGE ARCADIA. 



Useful products were as diverse and as abundant as could be 
wished. Everywhere they met with spices of different sorts, with dye- 
woods, and with quantities of cotton, but with little of that gold upon 
whose discovery the efforts of the Admiral v/ere concentrated. 



ST. DOMINGO AND HAYTI. 109 

This consideration decided him to leave the island of Cuba, and 
as soon as weather permitted, he began to coast along the shores 
towards the south-east. This excited great terror among the Indians, 
who believed that this course must soon bring them to the country 
of Bohio or Babeque, the modern Hayti, where dwelt the warlike 
and ferocious Caniba. Columbus, as we have seen, had reasons for 
hoping that they were true prophets ; but once again, the main object 
of his search was to elude him. 

The island to which he came on Friday, the 7th of December, 
and which he named Hispaniola—no^ St. Domingo or oftener Hayti 
—and In which he found so much to remind him of Spain, was indeed 
the mysterious Bohio or Babeque of which he had heard; but it 
contained few or no Kaniba, and the Grand Khan had never been 
heard 'of there. 







?Sf<^# § ^'^f \' 




CHAPTER VI. 



While the Admiral was still exploring the north-eastern coast 
of Cuba, which he mistook for the eastern extremity of Asia, an 
occurrence took place which might have had the most disastrous 
consequences; his little force was suddenly reduced by more than 



114 



CHRIS rOPHER CO L UMB US. 



one-third; the caravel next in size to his own, the Pinta, commanded 
by Alonzo Pinzon, had disappeared ; and the fears wliich were at first 
conceived for her safety soon gave way to the painful certainty that 
she was a deserter. 

Pinzon had already given the Admiral great uneasiness by his 
cupidity and insubordination ; he had "played him more than one 
evil turn," as Columbus says in his Memoirs; and now, on the faith of 
information to which his superior, as he thought, attached too little 
importance, he determined to seek the land of gold in the north-west, 
and to secure for himself the sole honor of a discovery which would 
have cast all other achievements into the shade. 

Columbus waited for him for some time, and even sent to seek 
him; but soon, without letting it be seen that he diought Pinzon a 
runagate, he pursued his voyage, in the spirit of a man who felt that 
no treacherous plotting, whether by a subordinate or by a King of 
Portugal, could now prevail against him. The power of the adver- 
sary was not yet. 

And dearly did the traitor pay for his first overt act of insubor- 
dination. At first he had been Columbus' friend; then a jcalOus and 
disrespectful lieutenant; now he was in open mutiny. He thought him- 
self, in virtue of his nobility, above obeying orders. He had been one 
of the most powerful men, the ricos honibres, of Andalusia. The time 
was to come when he would be glad of mercy from the poor foreigner 
who could hardly have launched a vessel without the help ol the proud 
Spaniard. 

While Pinzon was preparing for himself this recompense of 
ignominy, the Admiral -pursued the course of his discoveries in the 
island of Hispaniola, which, to avoid confusion, we shall call St. 
Domingo, the name which it afterwards received. 



AiVACOANA. '115 

His first landing, after taking the bearings of several points not 
so convenient for his purpose, was at a harbor which, by a freak of 
fortune, has retained its pristine name of St. Nicholas. 

Here his first care was to effect an intimate and lasting alliance 
with the native tribes, who seemed to him far more civilized than any 
he had yet seen. Their skin was whiter, and their features more reg- 
ular and European. They were a handsome race, especially the 
women. They wore some slight clothing, and with the exception of 
the chiefs, each man had but one wife. They had little difficulty in 
cultivating a soil which lent itself to their wants. They had broad, 
well-built roads. Their huts, which contained several rooms, and 
were often surrounded by rustic galleries, were neat and clean; the 
abodes of the chiefs were spacious and comfortable, and not wanting 
in a certain sort of elegance. Finally, a collection of a thousand houses 
which the Spaniards came upon four leagues from the coast, if it did 
not rise to the description of the famous Cipango, might properly be 
termed a city. 

This city haci been found completely deserted; its inhabitants had 
abandoned it, carrying with them their most valued possessions; but a 
beautiful Indian girl having been brought to Columbus, treated by 
him with the utmost consideration and sent to her tribe loaded with 
presents, an immediate change took place in their feelings. Once 
again, in the life of our hero, feminine influence had been brought to 
bear in his favor. 

Yet the Admiral accords to her in his journal only a mention of 
some few lines; although she was of the greatest assistance to him. 
It may be the fault of Las Casas, that unlucky abridger, that even her 
name is never recorded by Columbus; Anacoana, the Flower of Gold, 
the first friend of the white men in the New World. 



ii6 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

Full light has not yet been thrown on the importance of the part 
played by this Wild-Flower in the history of Columbus' first discoveries. 
She appears in greater and greater prominence as we delve into the 
dusty records of history; and we feel that that history will never be 
complete, until it has been regarded from an American stand-point. 

It is at least certain that Anacoana was one of the queens and 
priestesses of St. Domingo ; that the islanders were at first hostile to 
Columbus, and that her enthusiastic protection secured him their 
friendship. Thanks to her, he was even raised to the rank of a 
divinity, and placed among the gods, the zeines, of a religion far less 
simple than was at first supposed. 

All was going as he would have it, when of a sudden Columbus 
set sail from Port Conception, where he made a long stay, and stood 
to the north, towards a fabled country which the Haytians assured him 
abounded in gold. He was driven by contrary winds to the Tortugas, 
a small and insignificant island, but of such ravishing beauty that he 
called one of its valleys Paradise. Beginning to distrust the native 
stories, he did not attempt to seek for gold in this paradise, which was 
soon to be turned by buccaneers into a hell ; but, coasting the channel 
which separates the Tortugas from St. Domingo, he resumed his 
exploration of the Haitian coast. 

He found the natives everywhere friendly, thanks to the com- 
mands of Anacoana, and to the accounts given by her messengers 
of the white strangers. 

He had hardly dropped anchor in the Puerto de Paz, when more 
than five hundred Indians, and among them many beautifiil women, 
came joyfully to meet him, with their chief at their head ; thus fulfilling 
one of the AdmiralVTTrost ardent desires. Though this chief or 
cacique, as he was called, was as scantily clad as his subjects, the 



THE C AC f CUE'S VISIT. 



117 



superiority of his rank was shown at the first interview by the respect 
shown to him by his followers, and by his own dignity of manner. 




THE FLO^WER OF GOLD. 



Columbus received him on board with military honors, and obtained 
from him much information, more or less useful; among other things 
^rning that unhappy Babeque which always fleeted before the 



concer 



1 1 8 CHR IS TO PI/ER COL UAfB US. 

explorers. There was evidently, on this point, a misunderstanding 
between the Spaniards and their Indian allies, which will [jrobably never 
be cleared up. 

Another friendly Cacique, who possessed a lump of gold as big 
as a man's fist, broke it into small pieces in order to facilitate exchanges 
with the white men. ' He told them, moreover, that he had sent after 
more of the precious metal, spoke of Babeque as a countr)- not far 
off, and at the approach of night, went back to his home in the interior. 

Two days afterwards, he returned, carried on the back of a 
servant, in a sort of palanquin, followed by a numerous escort, and 
accompanied by two old men, one of whom seemed to be his counsellor 
on state matters, and the other his tutor. He came to visit the Ad- 
miral, whom he found at dinner in the cabin of his ship. 

Columbus received him with admirable gravity. He found that 
the Cacique wished to be received without ceremony, and that when 
invited to sit at table with his host, he took of each dish just what was 
necessary to avoid seeming impolite. He did the same with the 
liquors, which he barely tasted, and then passed them to his attendants. 
His manner and gestures were of remarkable dignity. 

But his dignity and discretion could not resist the sight of an 
object which doubtless surpassed in magnificence all which had hitherto 
tempted him from his decorum. 

While Columbus was talking with him, with the help of the San 
Salvador Indians, whom he had brought with him as interpreters, the 
Cacique became suddenly inattentive, and his eyes wandered frequently, 
in spite of his self-r(;'straint, towards the Admiral's bed-covering 
When Columbus instantly begged him to accept it, together with a 
pair of red slippers and a necklace of amber beads, the gratitude o^ 
the Cacique and his servants was boundless, and the lofty notion which 



DIVINITIES FROM THE SKIES. 



119 



their hosts tiicd to give them of the power of Spain and of its 
sovereigns now found a ready acceptance. The Two Kings were 




THE GRATEFUL CACIQUE. 



taken for divinities from the skies. The time had not yet come when 
a great poet woiikl put into Indian mouths these verses: 



, 20 CHR IS TO PHER COL U M B US. 

Pour moi, je les crois fils de ces dieux malfaisants, 
Pour iiui nos maux, nos plcurs, sont le plus doux eiuens. 
Loin d'etre dieux eux-meme ils sont ce que nous sommes ; 
Vieux, malades, mortels. Mais s'ils etaient des liommes, 
Quel germe dans leur coeur peut avoir enfante 
Uii tel exces de rage et de ferocite ? 



" As for me, I believe them to be sons of those maleficent deities 
to whom our woes and our tears are the sweetest incense. Far from 
being gods themselves, they are of our own race; sick, old, and mortal. 
And yet, were they men, what natural human impulse could give birth 
to such an extreme of rage and of ferocity?" 

A few months later, that rage and that ferocity were to be let 
loose upon this kindly, intelligent and hospitable people. 

In the meanwhile, although they shared the devotion of their 
chiefs to the beneficent strangers, yet the constant and familiar rela- 
tions into which they were brought with the sailors, had shown them 
that there were, at all events, inferior and superior deities, and that 
the inferior class was not exempt from human weaknesses. They 
found, moreover, that high and low alike were consumed with the 
desire for gold; and to humor their "wishes, the Indians told them the 
wildest tales; sometimes of a region over which reigned a king whose 
banner was made of an immense plate of beaten gold; sometimes of 
a river whose sands were mixed with gold; farther to the East, gold 
was so common that one could stoop and pick it up. One old man 
declared that one of the islands from which he had come was a solid 
rock of gold. 

But Columbus put little faith in these travellers' tales. "Although 



WHERE fS THE LAND OF GOLD? j2i 

this people," wrote he, "live not far from the gold-bearing country, I 
believe they have but little of it." And there could be no doubt that 
if they had possessed much of it, they would have exchanged it at 
once for glassware, red lacings, needles and especially for those hawks'- 
bells, to them the most marvellous of the Spanish possessions, whose 
clear joyous tinkle roused to madness their tireless passion for the 
dance. To be able to attach these sounding wings, these cimq-clmq, 
as they called them, to their wrists and ankles, the natives would give 
every thing they had; tame parroquets, bows and arrows carved with 
true barbaric good taste, small cotton aprons, cassava-bread, Iruits, 
perfumes, spices and commodities of every kind. 

So little calculating were they that thev frequently offered these 
things for nothing, for the mere pleasure of giving; and Columbus 
justly inferred from their liberality that the gold-bearing countries were 
not in their possession, but in that of the Caraibes or Caribs. No 
doubt they would have been glad to see the Admiral and his troop 
of demi-CTods marchintr asjainst these Caribs, the most cruel enemies 
of their race. 

Another error into which Columbus fell was caused by a similarity 
of sound between Civao, the name given to these gold-bearing regions, 
and the famous Cipango ; a resemblance like that between Kaniba 
and the Grand Khan. And the most curious part of this mistake 
was that the veritable Cipango, which is the modern Japan, was then 
in a condition of such poverty that its King could not be buried 
with the ceremonies befitting his rank. Moreover, the people of these 
islands were numerous and warlike, and so inhospitable that, far from 
receiving strangers as gods, they had forbidden them to approach 
the country. 

So that Columbus was more fortunate than he would have thought 



122 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

himself, when he finished his exploration of the northeastern coast 
of St. Domingo. He received everywhere the same welcome; at every 
stopping-place the scenes above described were repeated; and gold 
appeared in larger cjuantities, chiefly, no doubi, on account of the 
higher rank of the caciques who came to pay their homage to the 
Admiral. 

While he lay in the harbor of St. Thomas, near a river so broad 
that he compared it to a sea, he received a present of a belt adorned 
with the face of an animal with long ears, whose protruding tongue 
and nose were wrought in beaten gold. 

In the interior, three leagues from Punta Santa, another chief 
received with honor a party of six men sent to him by the Admiral, 
and sent back as a present a small quantity of gold. Another gift 
came from a cacique whose name will frequendy recur in this nar- 
rative. It was a huge mask, part of which was overlaid with leaves 
of gold. 

While these presents were far from answering to the marvellous 
tales of Marco Polo, they evinced to the Admiral the generosity and 
kind-heartedness of the natives. He soon received even stronger 
testimony of their benevolent disposition, under circumstances of great 
calamity and peril. 

Persuaded by all that he heard that he was near Civao, he started 
in search of that imaginary Ophir, across a sea full of reefs and sand- 
banks, where nothing answered to his preconceived ideas, but where 
nevertheless he abated not a whit of his vigilant and thorough explo- 
ration. Having cast anchor in a harbor apparendy secure, with the 
water as quiet "as if in a basin," Columlnis, who iiad been without 
sleep for thirty-six hours, determined to take a little rest. The tired 
crew were also asleep, and the steersman, as soon as the Admiral went 



FRIENDS IN NEED. 123 

below, gave the helm to a novice and deserted his place at the tiller. 
Of a sudden the boy whom he had left in charge gave piercing cries 
for help. 

Columbus was the first to be aroused. He saw at once that the 
ship had struck, and rapidly issued the necessary orders to the half- 
stupefied sailors. A boat was launched to carry out an anchor astern, 
and the mainmast was already tottering under the blows of the axes, 
and by its fall would have lightened the ship, when the sailors in the 
boat, instead of playing their part, became frightened, and pulled off to 
the Nina. The manoeuvre consequently failed, and the ship was 
driven aground by the breakers. She became more and more top- 
heavy, and at last turned fairly over on one side. Fortunately the sea 
was not heavy, and the ship did not break; so that Columbus could 
transfer his crew without difficulty to the Nina, which had come up 
to his rescue, and brouifht him back the crestfallen sailors who had 
deserted him in the boat. 

The ships were brought to, to await the day. The indefatigable 
Admiral returned on board of the shipwrecked vessel, to ascertain the 
extent of the disaster. He found to his sorrow that the utmost which 
could be done was to prevent any further injury being received. 
Thereupon he sent on shore two trusty men, charged to ask the help 
of the young cacique Guacanagari. 

Then it was that the humanity and charity of the poor Indians, 
who met with such an evil recompense from our race, shone forth in its 
full beauty. 

While all along the shores of the Old World, the infamous Law 
of Wrecks was recognized and practised — indeed, it is hardly yet 
obsolete, — in these far off lands, men without a written law, idolaters, 
savages, as a Matheos or a Pinzon would have called them, not only 



124 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

saved the lives and property of strangers from the devouring ocean, 
hut gave them every assistance in their power, and showed them the 
most heart-felt sympathy. 

At daybreak appeared the chief and his two brothers. He put 
at the Admiral's disposition all his canoes, and all the strength of their 
oarsmen, to assist in unloading the shipwrecked vessel. He himself 
presided over the work, all the while consoling Columbus by constant 
encouragement, and placing at his command everything which he pos- 
sessed. He set guards over the work of salvage ; and although the 
least among the thousand objects which were brought to shore, and 
which lay for several nights in the open air, w ould have been a treasure 
to his subjects, not a single pin or nail was stolen. 

And at that very day and hour, perhaps, on some European coast, 
a ship in desperate straits was driving upon a reef to which the 
treacherous lights of wreckers had drawn her; and when the destruction 
was complete, a horde of Christians, men, women and children, rushed 
upon the few survivors, as they neared the shore, with boat-hooks, 
pitchforks and grappling-irons, and completed the work of the sea! 

No doubt Columbus had some such contrast in mind, when he 
wrote to his sovereigns: "These men are loving, not eager for gain; 
and so tractable in all things that there is not in the world any better 
people. Their speech is the sweetest and the iriendliest ever heard, 
and always accompanied with a gentle smile. It may truly be .said 
of them that they love their neighbors as themselves." 

The experience which he had just had of these " natural Christians, ' 
determined Columbus to establish a military post in a place which 
seemed, besides, to have been pointed out by the finger of Providence. 
He imparted his intention to his good friend, the cacique Guacanagari, 
who heartily approved of it, and offered his assistance. But the 



BUILDING A FORT. 



I 2- 



Admiral was determined, as he has told us, to give the chief and his sub- 
jects a high opinion of the power and resources of the Spaniards. He 
ordered his men to build a tower and a small fort over arched vaults, 




THE WRECKERS AND THEIR PREY. 



and to bring together in this place the ship's ammunition, with provisions, 
and commodities of all sorts, which might be of service to the garrison. 



,26 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

The work went rapidly forward under the direction of the Admiral, 
who was at once architect and engineer. The you ng Cacique watched 
its progress with intelligent curiosity and admiration. He had already 
so far adopted European customs as to wear a shirt, gloves and shoes, 
presents to him from his patron. As he often made mention of the 
man-eating Caribs whose incursions laid waste his litde kingdom, Co- 
lumbus determined, before leaving the country, to give him and his 
people a high idea of the benefits which would result to them from an 
alliance with Spain. A litde cannon [practice achieved this desired 
result. The Indians were even overwhelmed with terror, when they 
heard the noise and saw the execution done by a harquebus and a 
Lombard, whose balls were aimed at the hull of the Santa JUaria. 

When the fort had been constructed, Columbus solemnly conse- 
crated this cradle of the infant colony by the name of Ahitividad, the 
Nativity, or as we should call it, Christmas. He raised above it the 
standard of Castile, and set upon a neighboring hill the first monu- 
mental cross which the New World had ever seen. 

The Indians assisted at these ceremonies. Their Cacique was clad 
in a superb scarlet mande, and surrounded by his nobles and priests ; 
much to the Admirals surprise and edification. His heart was glad 
within him when he saw the respectful attitude of his allies, and marked 
their frequent use of the sign of the cross, which seemed to promise a 
rapid conversion to that holy religion whose moral precepts were 
already exemplified in their lives. 

It was, therefore, a double grief to him to feel that he must set 
his face homeward; but the loss of one of his ships, and the crippled 
condition of another, left him litde choice. He selected the garrison 
of his post with great care. It consisted of forty-two men, most of 
them veterans, under the command of his nephew, Diego de Arana; 



MEETING WITH THE PINTA. 1,7 

and after this, having done his best to provide for ever\- contingency, 
and having bestowed on the httle colony his wisest and most paternal 
instructions, he took leave of the inconsolable Guacanagari, and on 
Friday, the fourth of January, he set sail for Europe in the Nina. 
The little ship carried more than Cssar and his fortunes. 

They had hardly gotten out of the channel, when the wind shifted, 
and became so contrary that they had to keep close to shore. 
Columbus profited by the delay to make a careful geographical survey 
of this beautiful coast. At the foot of a mountain wliich he called 
Monte Cristo, just as he was entering the harbor of the same name, 
a cry from the topmast announced the appearance of the Pinta, 
which came towards them directly before the wind. 

Making a virtue of necessity, the elder Pinzon soon came along- 
side of the Admiral, to whom he sought to explain his desertion as 
having been caused by stress of weather. Columbus listened without 
remark; but wrote that night in his journal that, "once his mission 
was finished, he would endure no longer the aflronts of impudent 
and wicked men, who assumed to follow their own will ao-ainst him 
who did them so much honor." 

Nor did Pinzon by his conduct forfeit the esteem of the Admiral . 
only; his reputation as a sailor was lessened in the eyes of the crew, 
when it was seen that, in his eagerness after gold, he had neglected 
to renew a rotten mast, and had allowed the teredo to burrow 
undisturbed into the hull of the ship. 

The damage done by this worm, added to a leak in the Nina, 
long detained the expedition, and exposed it to the force of storms, 
from which, by greater promptitude, it would have escaped. 

During this inevitable delay, Columbus did not lose his time. 
He explored the northern coast of St. Domingo as far as the Gulf 



I 28 CHR IS TO I' HER CO L UMB C/S. 

of Samana, and at the same time gave a sharp lesson to the natives 
of the Ciguayan tribe, who had attacked a Spanish detachment. 

This was the first blood shed by Europeans in the New World; 
but the cause was a good one, and as no lives had been lost, Columbus 
had the satisfaction of seeing a good understanding reestablished 
between his command and the natives, whom he regarded as alike 
his children. 

In the meantime, while he was seeking in the south-east that island 
of the Amazons, which is supposed to have been Martinique, the wind 
shifted in his favor, and he turned the ship's head to Spain, in the 
name of the Holy Trinity; hoping, as he said, in spite of the condition 
of his caravels, that the same God who had conducted him thither 
would bring him again to haven. 

The weather during the first week was encouraeine; but from the 
twenty-first of January there were constant changes in the rhumb-line ; 
calms and squalls succeeded each ether after a fashion which threatened 
to retard his voyage indefinitely. The A7;m had constantly to take 
in sail and wait for the Pinta, which was sailing almost close to the wind. 

Two weeks later, nevertheless, the pilots declared they were close 
to the Spanish coast. Columbus maintained that they were a hundred 
and fifty leagues out of their reckoning, and the event proved too 
clearly that he was right. Just at the time when, according to their 
calculation, the ships should have been entering harbor, there burst 
upon them a storm which, for three days in succession, kept them in 
expectation of immediate shipwreck. 

The Pinta, which was no longer in condition to hold the wind, 
scudded before it with bare poles She answered once to the nocturnal 
signal of the Nina : but soon afterwards disappeared in the night. 

At last the dano;er seemed so ereat that the Admiral determined 



A STORMY VOYAGE. 129 

to write upon parchment a brief account of his discoveries, and to 
throw it into the sea, with the precautions usually observed in such cases. 

Having thus clone his best to provide for the perpetuation of his 
achievement, his mind became tranquil, and he awaited with calmness 
the worst which might happen. 

On Friday, February the fifteenth, land appeared in sight which 
the pilots thought to be the Spanish coast, but which the Admiral 
declared to be one of the Azores. 

Again he proved to be right. It v/as the island of St. Mary's, 
and a possession of the Portuguese. He was compelled by the condi- 
tion of his ship to come to anchor off the coast, although he felt ereat 
doubt of his reception. 

A number of his men went on shore, to perform a vow made 
during the force of the tempest. They had no sooner set foot on land 
than the governor caused them to be arrested. Columbus, as was 
afterwards discovered, would have had the same fate, had he left the 
Nina ; but he was careful not to do so. Finally, having failed to entrap 
the Admiral, the governor sent back tiie captured sailors, and the Nina, 
which had not even been revictualled, was compelled to take the sea 
again in a furious storm. 

This storm was the most terrible known on the Atlantic within 
the memory of man. Off Flanders alone, twenty-five Spanish ships 
perished. 

But the little Nina had a better fate. Running under bare poles, 
with her head to the storm, she grazed the terrible Rock of Cintra, 
and, across a thousand dangers, forced the difficult entrance to the 
Tagus. Once again Columbus had achieved the impossible. 

While his crew were lamenting to see themselves in the power 
of the Kinof of Portuoral, he was inditing to that monarch a letter such 



I30 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

as he only could write; and the prince, disarmed by his eloquence, and 
perhaps dreading the vengeance of Spain, sent for the Admiral, treated 
him with the greatest consideration, caused him to be presented to the 




COLUMBUS BEFORE THE SOVEREIGNS OF PORTUGAL. 

Queen, who listened with delight to his narration, and at length, after 
some hesitation, permitted him to depart for Spain. 



LAND AT LAST. 



131 



He even proposed to Columbus, at the last moment, in view of 
the bad weather, to send him to Spain by land wqth an escort suited to 
his rank. The Admiral knew that the King had been advised to have 
him assassinated, and had repelled the suggestion with horror. Never- 
theless, he thought it more prudent to make the journey by sea ; and 
on Friday, the filteenth of March, he passed the bar of Saltes, sailed 
up the Odiel, landed at Palos, and rushed to meet the welcome of 
Father Juan Perez de Marchena. 



^'-iJ- ^ , fi 4_(jii;'^ !;;! / f I 




THE MEETING WITH FATHER MARCHENA. 




CHAPTER VII, 







1111,1 II 



liUll 



\ v-.^=-( 




THE PRIEST AT HIS WINDOW. 



CHAPTER VII. 



It was not chance which brought the worthy Superior of La 
Rabida to meet his friend. 

Seven months and a half had passed since the departure of the 

'35 



136 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

little fleet, when, anticipating the time at which their return could 
reasonably have been looked for, the Father began to spend every 
hour which his duties left free at his station in the observatory. 
There, with his eyes fixed on the sea, he passed from prayer to cal- 
culation and reverie, while the beads of his rosary fell mechanically 
between his fingers. 

His face was seldom seen in the city of Palos, where every look 
seemed to reproach him as the friend and patron of the Genoese 
adventurer, who had carried away on a hopeless quest the flower of 
their community. 

So that, when he unexpectedly appeared at the head of the litde 
lane leading down to the port, panting for breath, with all his tidings 
in his face, but unable to speak a word; before he could reach the 
quay, the cry was taken up from house to house, and in a moment, as 
if by magic, all the population of the place was around him. 

It was as they had thouglit : the man who had been first to fathom 
the genius of Columbus had also been the first to recognize the Nina 
in the ofifino- and had hastened to brino- to his anxious townsmen the 
welcome news. 

Words are wanting to express the delirium of joy excited by his 
intelligence. Pomponius Lattus would have said that in the eyes of 
their fellow-citizens, the sailors of the Nina had returned from regions 
more remote than Hercules, who brought Theseus and Pirithous back 
from hell. The precious cargo, too, which they doubtless had on board 
enhanced the general joy. 

Yet there was not wanting much anxiety and doubt. Of the 
three caravels which had left the port, only one, the smallest, was 
returning; and as she bore the Admiral's flag, what must have become 
of the two larger? If Father Marchena was sure of the safe return 



THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY. 137 

of his friend, how many famiHes were there who must meet with a 
bitter disappointment ! 

Then, too, as fortune no sooner grants us one favor than we 
demand another at her hands, some said that the return of the 
squadron would be nothing unless it had accomplished its purpose, 
and that such a speedy return argued only failure. Seven months and 
twelve days were evidently insufficient to conquer, convert and lay 
under contribution the land of gold and spices. 

But this last point was soon to be cleared up. 

Though the Nina was still in the offing, and was loaded to the 
water's edge, there was a certain triumphant flutter on her sails which 
seemed to presage great news. Old sailors say that a ship returning 
from a successful voyage can be as readily distinguished as a sportsman 
who has filled his game bag. 

And the Nina was not silent. As she drew nearer, the thunder 
of her cannon, her signals of victory, the hurrahs of her crew were 
answered by the shouts of the townsmen, and the joyous peals of the 
tocsin. 

From whence appear, in such an hour, flowers, vases, white cloths 
embroidered with bouquets, carpets, and images of saints, which in 
the twinkling of an eye make of a litde village street a scene of 
enchantment, it would be hard to say ; but they do appear. 

Columbus landed, "and walked to the church over a carpet of 
flowers, heath and oleander; under wreaths of foliage, rising from ter- 
race to terrace. Some of the doors were hung with mottoes, one of 
which was in front of the barber's house. 

But most touching of all to Columbus was the gratitude that 
shone in every face. He had done his best to bring back to the litde 
town all the sons which, against his will, he had taken from her. He 



138 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

Iiad put on board the Niiia all of them whom the little ship would hold. 
The few who remained had taken passage on the Pinta ; and strange 
to say, while the Te Dcuni was being chanted in the church, and even 
in the street before it, for the church was too small on that day to hold 
the jo\'ful throng, the Pinta too cast anchor in the port, and sailed up 
to the town, with one man only missing from her crew. That man 
was her commander, the faithless, and we may now call him, the 
unhappy Alonzo Pinzon, who, when he saw that the Nina had arrived 
before him, and that the Admiral's flag was floating from her mast, 
rowed to the shore, and fled to the seclusion of his own household. By 
this disgraceful flight he escaped for the moment from the just penalty 
of his treason. 

As soon as he had touched land in the Bay of Biscay, Pinzon, who 
did not doubt that the little Nina had perished in the storm^ wrote to 
the Two Kines a letter announcing his return, and takinof to himself 
all the honor of Columbus' discoveries. The tremendous rebuke which 
he received from the Court, soon after witnessing the Admiral's 
triumphant return, threw him into utter despair. He died a few days 
afterwards in obscurity and disgrace. 

Such was the lamentable end of a man of ability and unquestioned 
seamanship, whose share in the discovery of America would have 
assured him a brilliant future. He died a victim to the blindest and 
the most indomitable of passions. May the crimes into which he was 
led, at the close of a career hitherto irreproachable, have been 
sufficiently atoned by his anguish and disgrace ! 

We may imagine what a relief it was to Columbus to be spared 
from the infliction of the inevitable punishment. His joy at the Pintds 
return was now as unmixed as that of the townsmen of Palos, who saw 
all their children restored to them. 



A TALK BETWEEN FRIENDS. 139 

The little town was orateful alike to the Admiral, who had so 
cared for her welfare, and to that Providence which had overruled all 
things for good; the day of the landing, the people accompanied 
Columbus and his sailors to church, where with one heart they 
rendered thanks to God ; on the morrow, another religious duty was 
performed at the chapel of Santa Maria de la Rabida, where, barefooted 
and clad only in their shirts, like poor men saved from shipwreck, they 
went to fulfill a vow made on board. The Father Superior celebrated 
mass, a mass in which the full emotion of their hearts found expression 
on this great and solemn occasion. 

After the communion and the mass, Juan Perez and Columbus left 
the crowd, and together ascended the steps of that little observatory 
which had seen so many conferences between them over the grandest 
of designs; and there took place, with the joyful effusion of friendship, 
an interview at which our readers may, if they please, be present. 

They know the interlocutors, even without the help of our artist; 
they know the subject of the conversation, and can accompany ever}^ 
detail. 

The scene is as easy to reproduce as the actors. A bare white- 
washed room, with great arched windows opening on a boundless sea; 
a few chairs, around a table loaded with globes, books and maps, to 
which Columbus has just added his own charts and his ship's journal, 
not yet abridged by Las Casas; and in the wall above the friends, a 
niche with a litde statue of the Virgin, crowned with ever fresh flowers, 
and above her head the inscription, Ave, maris stella ! 

And now our readers can see and hear this simple, but noble 
and touching interview; an interview far more noteworthy than the 
triumphal reception of the crowd ; for it is true that to understand a 
man one must be his equal, and Columbus found in that quiet con- 



I40 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

vent a hcan and a genius equal to his own, and answering to his 
every thought; a friend and a lirother such as he never met again, 
neither at court nor on seaboard, nor among the men of science; 
nowhere but under the roof of La Rabida, where the grandest of 
maritime designs ripened into fruition under the rays of the Star of 
the Sea ! 

Two days were given to his friends and hosts, tlie brothers of 




COLUMBUS AND JUAN PEREZ. 

St. Francis; and then Columbus began to devote himself to the nume- 
rous duties which the success of his enterprise brought with it. 

He had already despatched to the Two' Kings, by a private hand 
from Lisbon, a brief compendium of his discoveries; he now prepared 
a more detailed account; and forwarded it to the Court at Barcelona. 

He hastened also to inform his wife and children, who had never 
quitted Cordova, of his return home, and he despatched to his beloved 



DON DIEGO COLUMBUS. 141 

father, who happily was still alive, a confidential message, with a letter 
relating the good news, and praying that his brother James (Giacomo), 
whose future he could now secure, might be sent to him. 

The rise ot Giacomo, — in Spanish Diego, — must have excited 
much jealousy in the city of Genoa, which had neglected and disowned 
his brother. The young man was twenty-six years old, and carried on 
the humble occupation of his father, with no outlook beyond it; and 
now of a sudden he was summoned to the Spanish court, and was 
transformed in a single day from Giacomo Columbus, the wool-carder, 
to the noble Don Diego Colon, aide-de-camp of the Grand Admiral of 
the Ocean Sea ! 

We shall soon see that he did not disgrace either this place of 
trust, or that of Administrator and Governor of Spanish India, which 
was bestowed on him some days afterwards, and which he was to fill 
with honor in the succeeding year. 

The honor of a relationship with Columbus was now eagerly 
sought. All who bore the name, both in Italv and in the countries 
around, claimed to be descended from a common stock; so that, if the 
aged Dominic still had to bear a separation from his son, he had the 
consolation of seeing his family increase every day with a rapidity 
which seemed to ensure the perpetuation, if not the glory, of the name. 

While these various messages were eti route for their destination, 
Columbus addressed a faithful narrative of his discoveries to the Holy 
See. In this document, which he had drawn up in concert with Juan 
Perez, he submissively suggested the first draft of that division of the 
.New World which was afterwards solemnly ratified by the famous 
bulls of the third and fourth of May, 1493. 

At the same time, or at least at intervals, and seemingly to refresh 
himself from his heavy labor and responsibility, he fulfilled the various 



t42 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

pilgrimages, for which he had been four times chosen by lot during 
the continuance of the tempest. 

When all these duties had been fulfilled, he departed first for 
Seville, where the formal answer of the Two Kings awaited him, and 
then for Barcelona, whither he had been summoned to attend them in 
person. 

His journey, whose memory still survived a century later in the 
provinces of Valencia, of Murcia, of Castile and Aragon, was a series 
of triumphs which have been compared to those of Ancient Rome ; 
an ambitious comparison, no doubt, from the material point of view, 
but a fair one as respects the enthusiasm which everywhere greeted 
the victor. 

As he approached the city, moving slowly through the throng 
which pressed forward to catch a glimpse of his features and to greet 
him with applause, he saw coming towards him, on steeds that pranced 
at the sounds of trumpets and cymbals, a troop of cavaliers of the 
highest rank, who hailed him with acclamations, and whose outbursts 
of surprise and delight at die unique appearance of his retinue were 
as loud as those of children. 

And in truth, had this retinue passed through the streets of one 
of our modern towns, severe, regular and monotonous as they are, and 
destitute of all color or picturesqueness, the cavalcade would, perhaps, 
be mistaken for the procession of an itinerant hippodrome. 

And yet there were in that procession the elements, or rather the 
germs of one of the greatest revoludons in social economy ever 
wrought on the globe. 

In front walked the pilots and the lower officers of the Nina, the 
highest in rank grasping the huge standard of the expedidon. Then 
came the sailors, the ship boys and apprentices, carrying, tied to poles, 




THE PROGRESS THROUGH BARCELONA. 







© 

o 

m 

N 



t^^- vgiiLiiik'ti"ia itt! tf«jic<in-iu"r - 



THE PRODUCTS OF THE NEW WORLD. 145 

to oars and to pikes, the most curious specimens of the animal, vege- 
table and mineral productions of the New World ; branches of different 
trees laden with their fruit, such for instance as the chocolate, whose 
nuts were soon to supply Europe, and especially Spain, with an ordi- 
nary article of diet; cocoanuts, quantities of bananas, enormous 
calabashes ; a great variety of spices and of medicinal plants, the 
former of which was already known, but the latter new to Europe; 
sugar canes as big as the body of a child; tree-ferns; branches of 
the cotton plant, with the husks half open, showing a substance like 
little flakes oi snow, which was destined to iurnish clothing at a future 
day for the inhabitants of the world, and to embroil them with each 
other in bitter and ceaseless wars. 

Among the vegetable products which had best resisted the long 
sea voyage, was a plant with tall stalk, crowned with great ears of 
grain, some purple as garnet, some transparent and yellow as amber, 
and topped by a light silky plume. This plant was the maize, or 
Indian corn, destined to become, in less than a single century, the 
principal food of the poorer classes in all Central Europe. 

No doubt, too, there appeared among the vegetables the potato, 
hanging by its withered and blackened stalk ; that modest plant, whose 
cultivation, introduced into France towards the year 1580, now extends 
over more than two millions of acres; the bread of the poor; the coarse 
manna which formed the staple of life in Ireland, and whose failure 
caused the starvation of thousands. 

We cannot doubt, either, that tobacco figured as a curiosity among 
these products; but a century of civilization was still necessary before 
the triple function of this plant would be generally understood. The 
revenue now derived from tobacco is over a hundred millions of 
francs yearly. Let us not blame Columbus for a gift whose value 



146 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

he did not understand ; let us rather regret that instead of the pri- 
vileges which so poorly paid his discovery, he did not ask for a 
monopoly of tobacco. Thus, supposing the very improbable occur- 
rence that this monopoly had been left in the hands of his descenti- 
ants, they could at this moment discharge their ancestor's pious vow, 
and buy the Holy Land from the Moslems. 

But would Christendom allow the purchase ? 

The cavalcade of Columbus moved but slowl\-, and we shall have 
time to finish our description. 

And first let us observe that, of all the productions of the New 
World which have just been enumerated, those most worthy of at- 
tention, as for instance the spices, produced the least effect on the 
spectators ; they did not make nearly so much show as the famous 
iguana killed by the Admiral with his own hand. This monster, 
which in its life-time was so gentle and timid, excited the universal 
horror. The people wondered at the immensity of its size, and com- 
pared it with a smaller one of the same species, killed by Alonzo 
Pinzon, who seemed in all things to evince his inferiority to his chief. 

Other animals, stuffed and living, struck the observer less by the 
variety of their color and form than by their essential difference from 
all the animals of Europe. Of this number was the agouti, the coati, 
the peccary ; different sorts of reptiles and of saurians, smaller but more 
ferocious than the iguana, who greatly resembled the Egyptian croco- 
dile, and thereby confirmed the idea that the Admiral had really dis- 
covered the eastern extremity of India. 

These animals were generally of small size ; but there were borne 
aloft the enormous shells of certain sea-turtles, full six feet in length. 
Perhaps the most conspicuous, alike to the eye and the ear of the 
crowd, were the red flamingoes, perched on their high thin stilts, and 



PRESE.VTS FROM QUEEN TO QUEEN. 147 

seeking in vain for a rest for their huge beaks; the cockatoos with 
flesh-colored plumage and brimstone crest, always ready to stiffen with 
anger; the superb aras; and a hundred species of parroquets, flapping 
their wings on their airy perches, and answering the shouts of the 
throng by deafening shrieks and laughter, sometimes even by words of 
Spanish picked up on the voyage. 

The products of Indian manufacture succeeded this itinerant me- 
nagerie. These were for die most part weapons of offence; clubs, 
bows and arrows, javelins, tomahawks skilfully cut from wood as hard 
and heavy as iron; various pieces of furniture, light but solid; instru- 
ments of music both pulsatile and wind, and among the latter, the 
double flute of the ancients, blown by the breath of the nostrils, so 
incomprehensible to us, but used in common by the contemporaries 
of Pericles and by the subjects of Anacoana. 

While the weapons engrossed the attention of the men, the wo- 
men were admiring lighter but bulkier trophies ; shawls, of colors soft 
and blended like the rainbow ; mantillas made of the feathers of 
birds ; white and finely woven iiaguas, or long trailing dresses, close- 
ly plaited, but without sleeves or waists. How could savage women, 
they wondered, how could idolaters plan and fashion such beautiful 
garments ? 

And the necklaces, the diadems of humming-birds' feathers ! And 
the beautiful worked baskets of straw whose colors were so exqui- 
sitely matched, and whose tissue was so close as to hold water with- 
out spilling a drop ! 

The Barcelona ladies might have been told that these latter 
objects were rare even in their native country. They were of the 
choicest manufacture, an offering from the Queen of Cibao to the 
Queen of Castile, from the Flower of Gold to the Flower of Grenada. 



,48 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

Wrought by the hands of women, they oftered a noteworthy contrast 
to those hideous idols which now fill our museums, and drive out the 
graceful gods of Greece. 

Some of these idols, doubdess, found favor with the throng ; but 
we must add that these were made of gold, or at least plated with 
the precious metal. Among them were the huge masks of which we 
have made mention, and whose golden ears, nose and tongue excited 
the national cupidity. 

Direcdy behind the gods came their adorers, six handsome 
Indians, whose skin was hardly visible under its tattooing and the rich 
ornaments with which they were covered. The large mournful eyes of 
these poor captives moved the pity of all. It was noticed that when 
the curious throng pressed too close, they turned insdnctively towards 
a cavalier who rode just behind them. 

The answering look of encouragement revealed, even more plainly 
than the universal respect and curiosity, the hero of the occasion, 
the Great Admiral, who without spilling a single drop ot blood, had 
given to Spain a new world. 

The common people hailed him as one of themselves, a man who 
had risen from humble station to an equality with the richest and 
proudest nobleman. 

As to the women of every class, from the lively peasant girl 
standing on dptoe to see the hero, to the fair dames leaning from 
their balconies, rusding with brocade of cloth of gold and velvet sewn 
with diamonds, there was not one who did not salute, with waving 
hand and kisses thrown through the air, the Chosen of God, the 
friend of Isabella, in the glory of whose discoveries their own sex had 
so great a share. 

In the midst of demonstrations such as these Columbus reached 



COLCJIBCS BEFORE THE KIXGS. 149 

the palace. He was soon in the splendid hall where the royal pair 
awaited him, surrounded by the proudest dignitaries of the realm and 
of the church. As he entered, Isabella and Ferdinand rose from their 
thrones. Columbus bent his knee and strove to kiss their hands, ac- 
cording to the etiquette of the Court ; but the Queen would not per- 
mit him ; before his knee touched the ground, she pointed to a seat 
beside her, and bade him be covered, as befitted his rank ; nor did 
she seat herself till her command had been obeyed. 

For a while, overwhelmed by so gracious a reception, he was 
hardly able to speak ; when he recovered himself, he began a de- 
tailed account of his expedition. The Two Kings listened with the 
most intense interest, both to his answers to their questions concern- 
ing the resources of the New World and the trophies which he had 
brought home, and to his glowing account of the great results to fol- 
low from his discovery for the glory of God and the happiness of 
mankind. 

By one of these impassioned descriptions his long narration was 
concluded ; and so great was the impression alike on the Sovereigns 
and their Court, that all fell on their knees together, and with tears 
of joy, intoned a Te Dcitiu, which was soon repeated by the entire city. 

This glorious scene, described by the good bishop of Chiapa, who 
was present near the Queen, as a foretaste of paradise ; this Te Daim, 
sung by a kneeling people, was the swan's- song of Christian chivalry, 
of the era of Dante and Columbus. In a little while, neither the poet 
nor the discoverer would be recognized even by their own. Beatri.x, 
the Christian Muse, was soon to open to the queenly Isabella the 
gates of light and peace; but Columbus was not to rejoin in Heaven 
the Singer of the Invisible Workl till, like Dante, he had traversed the 
circles of Purgatory and of Hell. 



I50 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

It is curious to notice how in this case, as often before, the me- 
thods of Art seem founded on the actual course of facts. If by happy 
chance there should ever be met together a poet, a language, a time 
and an audience worthy of composing and hearing the epic of Co- 
lumbus, the plot of the poem would lie ready to hand in the events 
of his life. 

What grandeur and sequence in the plan ! what order in the exe- 
cution ! what unity in the hero's character! what harmony in the ett- 
scmblc, and what variety in the details ! What art too, if the reader 
will pardon me the expression, in the arrangement of the contrasts ! 

We see these contrasts in the departure from Palos and the tri- 
umphal return to it; in the condemnation of the Admiral's plans by 
the Junta, and in their tremendous vindication by the result: and 
now the shield must be turned, and we must ask what reverses and 
what disgrace is to succeed this popularity. In accordance alike 
with the laws of poetry and of human nature, the fortune of Colum- 
bus has reached its climax, and must from tliis moment begin to fail. 

For a few months )et, all will go well with him. Worshipped 
by Spain and by all Europe ; his praises sung even in remote Africa : 
honored by an embassy from his native Genoa, whose senate had 
once turned a deaf ear to their illustrious citizen ; consulted, coun- 
selled and blessed by the Holy See, which alone remained faithful 
to his side ; he will show himself as modest in success as proud and 
resolute in adversity, and charm all men by the sweetness of his 
bearingf. 

Summoned constandv to the presence of the Queen, he will see 
her listening eagerly to his narrative, entering into his projects, for- 
warding his plans, and herself assuming the responsibility of their 
success. 



FAREWELL TO HAPPLNESS. 



151 



Instead of the three caravels, with their unwilHno- crew, obtained 
with so much difficuky for his first expedition, he will have under his 
orders a fleet of seventeen ships, manned with seven hundred men, 
sailors and soldiers, colonists, gendemen, artizans of all kinds; and 
he will be compelled to limit the number himself, for thousands will 
seek to follow his fortune. 




FAREWELL TO HAPPINESS. 

At last, clothed with unlimited power, taking with him every in- 
strument and appliance of colonization which his experience and the 
royal solicitude could conceive of; furnished with a personal retinue 
ot thirty persons, among whom are ten esquires of noble blood, he 
will set sail from Cadiz. 

What shall I add in conclusion of this happy chapter? His voy- 
age will be swift and prosperous ; he will land, as he has wished and 
sought, not at the harbor of St. Domingo, but on the shores where 



152 



CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 



dwell the cannibal Caribs, whom he tried to reach in his first expe- 
dition ; and then * ''^ * then will beoin for him a series of mis- 
haps, of errors, of reverses and disasters, which I may not pass by, 
but on which I shall be pardoned for dwelling as lightly as may be. 
It is the last privilege of a merciful and Christian hero that, as time 
goes on, the brightness of his glory gradually obliterates the disgrace- 
ful remembrance of his persecutions and his sufferings. 




THE DEPARTURE FROM CADIZ. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



On his first voyaq-e of discovery, Columbus had bade set sail in 
the name of Jesus Christ ; his second expedition was begun by in- 
voking tlie special favor of the Virgin. One of the three carracks in 



•55 



1^6 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

his squadron was named in her lienor, and this he chose for his flag- 
ship, although it was not so good a sailor as either of the others. 

On the twenty-fourth of October, he was still quite sick with an 
indisposition caused by the fatigue and anxiety attendant on the fit- 
ting out of the expedition. On that day there was a favorable 
change of wind; he rose in the middle of the night, sent orders 
through the fleet to weigh anchor, and himself directed the working 
of the ships. That no time should be lost, the lleet had already left 
the port, and were anchored out in the road-stead. 

The spacious and beautiful Bay of Cadiz was then the theatre 
of a spectacle more imposing than had ever before been witnessed in 
her waters. The sombre green line of the fortifications, and the belt 
of white houses which stretched above it, the Cape of St. Sebastian, 
and the long expanse of the Isla, as far as the summits of the rocky 
islands called the Hog and the Diamond, were alive with spectators. 

In the distance, the three carracks and seventeen caravels were 
vaguely outlined against the first faint light of the morning sky. The 
dark-blue sheet of water which lay between the city and the fleet was 
covered by thousands of vessels of every description, feluccas, fishing- 
boats, pleasure-boats, galleys, everything, in a word, which could be 
moved by oars or sails; not only from the harbor of Cadiz, but ironi 
Santa Maria, from Rota, and from all the Andalusian coast, from the 
mouth of the Guadalquivir to the Bay of Trafalgar. 

Around each of the seventeen ships were tossing up and down 
a host of little boats, some of them filled with the friends and rela- 
tions of those on board, others with citrons, oranges, pomegranates, 
watermelons, and fresh provisions of all sorts, which the sailors and 
passengers of the fleet were buying at the last moment. 

\w die midst of this confusion could have been seen, if any one 



ARRIVAL AT DOMINICA. 157 

had really wished to detect them, human figures furtively clambering 
out of the boats and slipping by the port-holes into the hull of the 
caravels. These surreptitious passengers, among whom was more 
than one representative of a good family, had been inflamed with the 
universal thirst for gold. More than three hundred persons, the 
majority of them of no good reputation, and some noted desperadoes, 
succeeded thus in eluding the vigilance of the ships' officers. These 
men, at a later period, formed the nucleus ol the opposition which 
baffled the wisest designs of the Admiral, 

Soon, as a cannon shot gave the signal of departure, the group 
of boats around each vessel was cast loose. One only remained for 
a moment fast by the Marigalante, the Admiral's flag-ship. At length 
a youth and a child went down into it over the ship's side and were 
rowed to port. They were the sons of Columbus, who had received 
their father's last embraces and blessings. 

Two hours later, the fleet was out of sight; and after ten days' 
voyage, it touched at Gomera, one of the Canary Islands. 

After a short stay at these islands, where he took aboard seeds 
and domestic animals for the future colony, Columbus turned the 
fleet's head more to the south than during the first voyage, and on 
the third of November, after twenty-one days' sail, interrupted but 
once by a storm, his expectations were fulfilled by reaching the south- 
ernmost group of the Antilles. 

As the day was a Sunday, the next after All -Saints, the first 
island discovered was christened Dominica, a name which it still bears. 
The Admiral took possession of it in the regular form ; then, accord- 
ing to his custom, he erected a cross, which was formally blessed by 
one of the ecclesiastics on board. 

This priest, whom a combination of circumstances pointed out for 



158 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

the office, and who was later to have the lionor of performing the 
first services of religion in the New World, was none other than our 
old friend Juan Perez de Marchena. Isabella had chosen him as her 
especial representative to accompany the expedition. As her delegate 
and in his individual capacity, he stood for two of the mystic triad to 
whom, under God, was due the discovery of the New World. 

This combination between the man of genius, the Church and the 
Crown, in the conception and execution of the mighty work, has been 
made evident only in our own time. More than four centuries have 
been necessary to restore to Juan Perez his proper place in the nar- 
rative, of which he had been deprived through his own modesty, 
through the absence of documents, and through the prejudices of his- 
torians. The worthy monk's co-operation, and even his presence at 
the second expedition have been almost always passed over in silence 
by the historiographers of the last two centuries, and have even been 
contested, in the face of the most positive contemporary evidence ; 
but they will no longer be disputed, thanks to M. Roselly de Lorgues, 
who has rendered this one service, at least, to religious and historical 
truth, and to the author of this narrative. 

So that Juan Perez de Marchena was one of the first to see the 
new countries discovered by his friend. P)Ut while he admired the 
magnificence of nature, he was destined, unhappily, to recognize the 
blighting changes wrought by the avarice and sensuality of man, and 
to meditate with sadness on that harsh but inexorable law by which 
the gentle and the guileless are subjected to the rule of the strong 
and the intelligent. 

Columbus was not ignorant of this law. He knew, moreover, 
that the ferocious Caribs, in spite of their cannibal propensities, were 
superior in intelligence to the tribes of the neighboring islands. 



THE CANNIBALS. 159 

The first land which he discovered after Dominica and Mari- 
galante, at neither of which did he malce any long stay, exactly justi- 
fied his expectations. 

This island, whose Carib name of Taruqueira he changed to 
Guadaloupe, was covered with forest^ of odoriferous trees, laden with 
fruit and flowers in profusion. From his first landing, he encountered 
sio-ns of careful and intelligent cultivation of the soil. Numerous vil- 
lages, from which the inhabitants fled at the approach of the Spaniards, 
bore still clearer witness to a relatively advanced civilization. The 
houses, carefully built of light materials suitable to the climate, were 
spacious, admirably arranged both for health and pleasure, and almost 
invariably adorned with galleries or with outer porticoes. In them 
were beautiful and comfortable hammocks woven of cotton thread, 
and various utensils and pieces of furniture fashioned with wonderful 
skill and patience. Among these were large and handsome earthen 
vases, several of which contained pieces of human flesh cooked and 
ready for eating. 

Heads but freshly cut off and limbs of men and of women were 
stored in these repositories, or hung in the kitchens, side by side 
with the hind-quarters of the dog or the iguana, with parrots, geese 
and ducks. 

So diat cannibalism was not in these regions a merely incidental 
fact, an outburst of animosity, of vengeance, or of superstition ; it was 
purely a sensual gratification, and was rendered doubly detestable, if 
there are any degrees in such a crime, by the abundance and the 
variety of vegetable and animal food enjoyed by those who practised it. 

It may be imagined how deeply such a horrible spectacle would 
afflict Father Marchena, prepared as he had been by Columbus for 
the sight. 



i6o 



CHRISTOPHER COL VMB US. 



One thin;^'- alone puzzled the Admiral, as contrary to his expec- 
tations. He did not understand why these fierce and intrepid Caribs 




A HORRIBLE DISCOVERY. 

had allowed him to land without resistance, and had abandoned to 
him the most precious contents ot their houses. Soon, however, from 
the entire absence both of boats and ot weapons, he came to the 



ATTEMPTS TO TREAT WITH THE CARIBS. i6i 

conclusion that, before his coming, they had gone off on some war- 
like expedition, leaving on the island only a scanty guard for the 
women and children. 

This supposition was soon confirmed by women of another race, 
prisoners among the Caribs, who readily surrendered themselves to 
the Spaniards, as they had no other prospect than that of being de- 
voured by their savage masters as soon as their beauty and strength 
should fail. Even those who had been made wives would fare no 
better than the others ; they would be eaten whenever they ceased 
to please their husbands, and certainly before their flesh had grown 
touofh with acre. 

The same custom prevailed as to the children born of these 
frightful unions, who owed their extraordinary plumpness to the same 
means by which we obtain the most delicate and the least prolific 
of our fowls. 

Columbus received all these poor women under his protection. 
A few, adorned and equipped with all sorts of attractive articles, were 
sent to the Carib families who were known to be hidden in the 
woods. They soon returned, stripped of the gifts and horribly mal- 
treated, and reported that no one would listen to them. On the first 
favorable occasion they were sent with the others to their native 
island. 

Urged by the desire to meet with these Caribs, whose vigor 
would render them more useful allies, and even more fervent Chris- 
tians, than the weak and pleasure-loving Ciguayans, the Admiral left 
Guadaloupe, in the hope to surprise the expedition which was then 
seeking its horrid prey among the natives of the neighboring islands. 

On the way, he discovered and named the island of INIontserrat, 
which had just been entirely depopulated by these same Caribs. 



1 62 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

He also named Santa Maria la Redonda, and Santa Maria la 
Antigua, the latter of which is now abbreviated into Antigua. 

Another island, which was probably St. Martin, was, like Guada- 
loupe, fertile and well-cultivated, but abandoned by its inhabitants. 
A detachment of twenty-five men was sent on shore to explore the 
country, and was returning with a few prisoners, when its boat en- 
countered a canoe containing six Indians, four men and two women. 
One of the latter^ evidendy of high birth, was seated by her youth- 
ful son. 

Profiting by their stupefaction at sight of the ships, the boat came 
up close behind them and cut off their retreat. Then their inaction 
changed into iury, and reckless of the number of their enemies, and 
of the loud reports of the European musketry, they took deliberate 
aim at the Spaniards with their poisoned arrows. 

In the twinkling of an eye, two men had been killed and several 
wounded by the hand of the chieftainess, when the Spaniards ran 
their boat against the canoe and upset it. But the Indians, half div- 
ing, half swimming, continued to shoot their arrows with fearful pre- 
cision into the compact group of their enemies. 

The final result of this skirmish is variously reported; but all 
agree that the young cacique, pierced through the body with a pike, 
died on shipboard, in spite of the care lavished on him, "with the 
courage of a Libyan lion." 

The same eye-witness tells us of the heroic mother and the four 
warriors who had fought by her side, that ''they were so fearful that 
none could look them in the face, but his heart and his entrails trem- 
bled with fear ; so hideous and infernal was their aspect." 

This time, for a certainty, Columbus had met true Caribs. 

His experience of them, for the present, had to be limited to this 



THE FATE OF THE GARRISON. 163 

encounter. Time pressed, and it was necessary for him to reach St. 
Domingo. He arrived there a few days afterwards, having recon- 
noitred on his way the islands of Santa Cruz, Santa Ursula, San Juan 
Battista, and the coundess group of islets which he named the Arch- 
ipelago of the Eleven Thousand Virgins. 

To the great surprise of his sailors, who saw him directing his 
course in these strange latitudes as if every reef was familiar to him, 
the Admiral cast anchor on the twenty-second of November, as he 
had announced, in that very gulf of Samana, where, eleven months 
before, he had left a Spanish garrison. 

A pinnace was sent at once to reconnoitre the mouth of the 
Golden River. The first siorht which met the crew was a floating 

o ■ o 

body, nailed to two pieces of wood joined in the shape of a cross. 
The corpse was too far gone to allow its race to be distinguished ; 
but a second and a third were encountered, and at last one whose 
beard, still adhering to the flesh, left no more doubt of the mournful 
truth. 

All of them were Europeans, whom the current of the river was 
bringing down to meet their brethren. 

This dreadful spectacle left little doubt of the fate of the gar- 
rison ; and the Admiral soon learned that it had been burned in the 
fort, or massacred to the last man by a Carib chief, the cacique of 
the House of Gold, the formidable Caonabo. 

Whether Anacoana had lost her control over her savage lord, 
or whether the crimes committed by the Spaniards had induced her 
to abandon them to the just vengeance of her people, it was difficult 
to decide from the information of the faithful Guacanagari. As soon 
as he found that Columbus had landed, this cacique came in haste 
to see his old friend. He declared that he had done everything in 



,64 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

his power to prevent the catastrophe, even to making war with his 
ally Caonabo. He even declared that he had received a grievous 
wound in defence of the Spaniards ; but this was soon discovered to 
be false, and caused many to believe that he had pla)-ed the traitor. 
This the Admiral always refused to believe; and the result con- 
firmed him in his politic confidence. 

But those around him were not of the same mind ; he had to 
overrule, on this occasion, much insensate and violent counsel, and 
to endure many imputations suggested by the extermination of the 
infant colony. The truth is, however, that he had left the colonists 
instructions of admirable wisdom, which are still extant, and one of 
which alone, the most peremptory of all, that of never sleeping out- 
side the fort, would have rendered impossible the catastrophe for 
which the Admiral was now blamed by a Boyle and a Fonseca. In 
truth, he had hardly left the island when his delegate, Diego de 
Arana, saw his authority contemned in all important matters ; the gar- 
rison treated the Indians with barbarity ; most of them left the fort 
to live outside in huts, with the wives of the Indian chiefs for their 
companions. The commander could hardly keep a dozen ol these 
foolish men in the fort at night, and even these refused to do senti- 
nel duty. 

But for this discord and recklessness, revealed to Caonabo by an 
outraged people, that chief would never have dared to attempt the 
massacre; the whole responsibility for the result must fall upon the 
victims. 

However this may be, all hope of a peaceful victory was now 
gone; and the resistance of the Indians had found an occasion and a 
leader, whom it would be necessary for the Admiral to chastise at 
the first opportunity. 



THE BUILDING OF ISABELLA. 165 

His most pressing necessity for the time being was to establish 
a local centre of defence, and if necessary of attack, for the European 
colony. With this object in view he had from the day of his arrival 
instituted a committee of investigation, who soon decided upon a loca- 
tion. It was the most favorable that could have been conceived of. 
Water, stone, carpenter's-woods were all in the neighborhood ; and, 
thanks to the help of the Indians, who came in numbers on learning 
of the Admiral's presence, a little city soon rose among the trees. 
This town, which was destined at a future day to become the Spanish 
capital of St. Domingo, was baptized, on the sixth of January, the an- 
niversary of the fall of Grenada, by the name of Isabella, 

Two months had sufficed to erect this city with its works of de- 
fence. During the same space of time, some of the grain brought 
from the Old World had already brought forth fruit in this wonder- 
ful soil, and proved an invaluable resource to the little colony, which 
had been threatened by famine on account of the insufficient supplies 
from Europe. 

Columbus, who, as the reader will remember, was sick when the 
fleet sailed from Cadiz, had been shamefully cheated in the quantity 
and quality of all the provisions, medicines, beasts of burden and 
articles of barter put on board the ships. This was his first experi- 
ence of a long course of knavery and chicanery on the part of the 
naval contractors, whose villainy will excite the special indignation of 
those who appreciate the obstacles thus cast in the way of the Admiral 

The discovery and report of their frauds added these influential 
persons to the list of the enemies of Columbus. 

The most dangerous of these enemies, on account of their birth 
and of some remaining influence and favor at Court, were the 
vagabond hidalgos, of whom a word has already been said. They 



,66 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

had come in the train of Cokimbus, lioping for ease, pleasure and 
the rapid acquisition of wealth ; and they blamed the Admiral for 
the deception of their hopes. 

Contrary to reason and the ordinary course of things, these mal- 
contents found a strong ally in Father Boyle, the Apostolic Vicar of 
the expedition, who owed his appointment to this important post to 
a sheer mistake of name. He was a man of integrity and of good 
morals : but his conduct was at once childish and vindictive. He 
had never pardoned Columbus for refusing to follow his advice and 
to put Guacanagari to death, and his resentment induced him to 
espouse the side of these worthless nobles, who complained bitterly 
of the disregard shown to their birth in the equal allotment of work 
and of rations among the colonists. 

Father Boyle, who, both as a Christian and a man of the world, 
should have known that this measure was absolutely indispensable, 
now urged Columbus to repeal his enactment ; and upon his refusal, 
excommunicated him. 

The Admiral and Viceroy of the Indies replied to this worthless 
anathema, which by the way was never ratified at Rome, by striking 
one-fourth from the already reduced rations of Father Boyle's proteges. 

Hereupon the greater excommunication, as it is technically called, 
was hurled at him by the indignant priest. 

This resulted in an order from Columbus to issue no rations 
whatever; and Father Boyle, who was now on dry bread and water, 
like a disobedient schoolboy, raised the excommunication ; whereupon 
the Admiral issued to the malcontents the regular half ration, which 
they now were glad enough to receive. 

Unhappily, this scandalous comedy, in which the only worthy part 
had been played by the Admiral, stirred up in the fleet a party hostile 



A GENEROUS ENEMY. 167 

to his policy and to his person ; so that, when he sent back to Spain 
twelve of his ships, he knew that his despatches to the Two Kings 
would be accompanied by calumnious attacks from his enemies. 

Just at this time he was obliged, with the help of his brother 
Diego, who won his spurs on the occasion, to crush, by the sternest 
measures, an outbreak headed by the hidalgos and countenanced by 
the unworthy representative of the spiritual authority. 

He took no other vengeance on Father Boyle than to appoint 
him a member of the Council, of which Diego was President, charged, 
during the Viceroy's absence, with the government of the colony. 

But Father Boyle was not a man to be disarmed by his adver- 
sary's generosity. When the Admiral left Isabella, with the double 
design of proceeding in his voyage of discovery and of bringing the 
Caribs to subjection, he left behind him enemies far more formidable 
than any whom he was seeking. 

He had already, through a preliminary exploration, fixed the 
military and scientific landmarks of this second and final expedition 
The political and geological constitution of the island was not 
unknown to him. He knew pretty nearly the course of the rivers 
reported to be gold-bearing, and the location of the so-called deposits ; 
he was aware that the island was divided into the governments of 
five principal caciques, each supported by a number of lesser chiefs. 

Of these five little kings the noblest was Guarionex ; the most 
warlike was Caonabo, a Carib of obscure birth, who owed his eleva- 
tion to his bravery and to the love of Anacoana. 

To the former of these chiefs belonged the great fertile plain 
which still bears the name bestowed upon it by Columbus of Vega 
Real. In this territory they had, by permission of the cacique, founded 
the new city of Isabella. 



1 68 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

Caonabo reigned over the southernmost and most mountainous 
part of the island. 

Between the habitual residence of this chief and the Spanish 
city Columbus had erected a fort, whose command he left to a cer- 
tain Pedro Margarite, a man who owed everything to the Admiral, 
and who was even then conspiring against him. Seeing that Mar- 
garite was exposed to an attack which did not, however, threaten to 
prove very formidable, and supposing that a reenforcement of seventy 
men would suffice for an officer of his well-known ability, Columbus 
sent him a company of picked men ; after which, postponing to a 
better occasion the conduct of a war of invasion in which he himself 
would take the lead, he set sail with three caravels, manned with a 
trustworthy crew, most of whom were from Palos. He was accom- 
panied by Juan Perez, by the famous cosmographer Juan de la Cosa. 
and, among other distinguished and zealous men, by Dr. Chanca, 
the author of a journal from which we have already quoted. 

The most remarkable results of this voyage, whose detail would 
lead us into too much repetition, were the discovery of the island 
of Jamaica, and the exploration of almost all the southern coast of 
Cuba, which confirmed Columbus and his scientific companions in the 
erroneous idea that this island was the eastern extremity of Asia. 

In Jamaica he found, not exacdy the Caribs, but an intelligent, 
handsome, industrious and energetic race, whom, after more than one 
severe engagement, he subdued to a friendship with the invaders. 

The person who most contributed to bring about this epheme- 
ral truce was an old man, apparendy of eighty years of age, whose 
conversation so impressed the Admiral by its morality and benevolence 
that a lively sympathy was soon established between them, and the 
Indian declared his determination to follow Columbus, "to the morn- 



SUDDEN ILLNESS. 169 

ing land, to the skies." It needed all the prayers of his wife and 
the tears of his children to dissuade him from his resolution. 

This meeting on the seashore, in the midst of the New World's 
virginal splendors ; this lovely idyl, inserted as it were to mark the 
dividing point between the happiness and the unhappiness of his life, 
must have left on the mind of Columbus an indelible impression of 
beauty and of pleasure. 

He was surrounded as well by scenes of natural beauty, to 
whose charms his heart was especially open. 

Sometimes in the distance the sky would be brightened by hosts 
of radiant butterflies or darkened by legions of sea-birds ; sometimes 
the brilliant light color of the water would be suddenly darkened by 
myriads of turtles, making their periodic migration towards the hot 
sand of the seashore, in which to deposit their eggs. Such was the 
impetus of these moving masses that the motion of the ship was often 
perceptibly retarded by them. 

More serious obstacles delayed his return to St. Domingo, and 
when he had added to his discoveries the easternmost cape of the 
island, after having struggled for nearly a month against constant 
bad weather; when he was ready to attack the Caribs in their native 
lairs, he fell suddenly prostrate to the deck. 

The strange sickness which paralyzed at the same time his body 
and his mind seemed to be a sort of catalepsy, which Dr. Chanca 
attributes to his constant watches and loss of sleep. He adds that 
the Admiral's companions resolved upon bringing him back, " as one 
half-dead, to the city of Isabella," 

But this utter prostration of a mind which had been driven too 
hard by the indefatigable will was not to prove of indefinite duration. 
It lasted, however, for five long nights and days, until the limbo in which 



170 



CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

the sick man's thoughts were 
wandering was broken by the 
recognition of a definite place 
and of a well-known and beloved 
voice ; he made a superhuman 
effort, as if to break the chains 
of disease, opened his eyes, be- 
gan to shed tears, and let his 
head fall on the broad shoulder 
of his brother Bartholomew. 

"He has recognized you," 
said Diego, " he will live." 

"He weeps," said Juan Pe- 




THE SICK BED. 



MARGARITE AND BOYLE DESERT. 171 

rez, " he is saved." And not only was he saved, but his ability to 
meet the difficulties which had gone far towards breaking down his 
strength was doubled by the presence of his energetic, intelligent and 
devoted brother. 

Bartholomew was in France, making interest for Columbus at 
the Court, when, upon the tidings of the discovery of the New World, 
King Charles VIII. made him a magnificent present and sent him to 
rejoin his brother in Spain. But in spite of all his haste, he arrived 
too late for the second expedition. 

The Queen had then put him in a condition to rejoin his bro- 
ther, and he brought back from the Court the moving details of his 
own gracious welcome, and the assurance that the Admiral had lost 
not a whit of the royal favor. 

This intelligence was soon confirmed by the arrival of four cara- 
vels, bringing to the colony all that the Viceroy had asked ; and, at 
the same time, a letter and presents from Isabella, in which she dis- 
played both her forethought and her magnificent generosity. 

But the discordant elements which, before his departure, he had 
successfully appeased, had so fermented during his absence that he 
was compelled to give up his expedition against the Indians. 

The revolt of this people had become almost universal, owing to 
the divisions among the Spaniards and to their oppressive conduct, 
and especially to that Pedro Margarite of whom we have made men- 
tion. Tliis officer openly rebelled against Diego Columbus, and 
'Father Boyle made common cause with him. They finally deserted 
their posts in the most dishonorable manner, and set sail for Spain, 
taking with them a number of malcontents. 

As the disbanded soldiers of Margarite were living by rapine and 
exaction, the Indians had combined to destroy them. The only chief 



172 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

who refused to unite in the league, and thereby justified the confi- 
dence of Cokmibus, was the cacique Guacanagari. The soul of the 
conspiracy was Caonabo. 

Having been baffled in several assaults, especially in one upon 
the fort, into which the faithful Ojeda had thrown himself after Mar- 
earite's defection, the Lord of the House of Gold had instructed his 
allies to starve out the Spaniards, by ceasing to cultivate the soil and 
by destroying the harvests and the seed-corn. 

Guacanagari gave the Admiral notice of this project ; and it 
became evident that Caonabo must be seized upon. This feat was 
accomplished by Ojeda, who brought the chief into Isabella bound 
hand and foot, thanks to a stratagem which might pass, in those rough 
times, for a legidmate device against a treacherous savage. 

The news of his capture roused the whole island against the 
Spaniards ; but Bartholomew Columbus, with one hundred foot and 
twenty horse, commanded by the valiant Ojeda, dispersed the host of 
the enemy. 

Soon after this, Columbus built three fortresses, commanding the 
most important positions of the Vega Real ; and the country now 
being momentarily pacified, he again began to search for the gold 
which was so pressingly and constantly demanded by the mother 
country. 

Meanwhile, Diego Columbus went to Spain, to answer in person, 
before the Two Kings, the accusadons brought against his brother. 
His enemies at Court were too strong; and he had the mortification 
of brineins: back with him a delegate of the crown, charged to make 
inquisidon into the conduct of the Viceroy. 

His enemies had counted upon his well-known quickness of tem- 
per to extort from him, under such trying circumstances, acts or words 



RETURN TO SPAIN. 



173 



of revolt; but, to the confusion of the delegate himself, Columbus, 
though he knew the man to be his enemy, received him with demon- 
strations of respect. 

When, however, he saw that no justice was to be expected from 
him, the Admiral determined to accompany him back to Spain, to 
make a personal defence and explanation of his conduct. 




Srlc^'y 






THE DEATH OF CAONABO. 



He set sail, therefore, on the faithful Nina, taking with him the 
sick, the discouraged, and thirty Indians. 

Among the latter was the cacique Caonabo, and an Indian 
woman of high rank, who had left her friends and her country to 
share his fate. The Lord of the House of Gold did not belie the 
pride of his race and of his character. In vain was the solemn 
engagement of Columbus to restore him to freedom and to his sub- 
jects when once he had presented him to the Two Kings ; incapable 



y 



i;4 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

of supporting the humiliation which he had undergone, lie quickly 
pined away. One of his brothers, who also was among the captives, 
survived him but a few days. 

By this time the Nina and the second caravel, on which was 
the accuser Aguado, had been roughly handled and much delayed in 
their voyage by the adverse trade winds, and by continual storms. 
A scarcity of provisions ensued, which soon amounted almost to a 
famine. At length there came a time when the crew rose in revolt, 
and demanded that the Indians should be delivered to them, that 
they might use the lex talioiiis against the Cannibals ; but the Admi- 
ral threw himself in front of them, and defended them with his own 
person ; and not one had perished when, by the grace of God, on 
the eleventh of June, 1496, the two caravels cast anchor in the road- 
stead of Cadiz. 




Kl 



m 






Q 











THE CHAIN OF GOLD. 



CHAPTER IX. 



If aught can add to the disdaui inspired in every generous mind 

by Popularity, that counterfeit of Glory, it will be by the story of 

Columbus' return to the same port from which, twenty-nine months 

before, he had set out under the full breeze of public favor. 

177 



178 CIIRISrorilf.R COLUMBUS. 

It is enough to say, for the purposes of this story, tliat tlie con- 
trast was one for a hero to forget ; and that there is not a word in 
the writings of the Achniral to show that in the presence of" this trial, 
he was ever for a moment less than himself 

The silence of the Two Kings, after he had notified them of his 
return, much oppressed him ; for he had to appear before them and 
plead not for glory, but for the work of his life and for his honor. 
This silence he had to endure for more dian a mondi, which he spent 
at the monastery of La Rabida, with his friend Juan Perez. The 
wordiy Superior had returned with Columbus; but we know nothing 
of him henceforwartl, except that he died a short time before his friend. 

When at last the royal letter acrived summoning Columbus to 
Burgos, where the Court was then held, the Admiral and Viceroy of 
the West Indies had resumed his ancient habit of a Franciscan monk, 
endeared to him of old. This he wore during his easy journey to 
Burgos; surprising by his simplicity a populace on whom all pomp 
and formality would have been thrown away. Yet there was in his 
train an Indian carrying a gold chain whose value by weight was 
about sixteen thousand francs, or over three thousand dollars; a con- 
siderable sum for that time. 

The Admiral had, in truth, just before his departure to Spain, 
been visited with a gleam of good fortune, the last with which his 
career was illumined. He had discovered a rich gold mine in St. 
Domingo, and could bring with him some proof that his glowing 
accounts of the m.ineral wealth of the New World were not mere 



exaggeration. 

00 



This discovery, however, did not produce all tlie effect for which 
he had hoped. The unfavorable accounts given by the deserters 
had broken the charm of his success. 



HIS RECEPTION BY THE TWO KINGS. 179 

As an Italian, he had failed to reckon with the proud indo- 
lence of the Spanish character. Year after year, this people make 
oil of an inferior quality, when they might have the best in the world 
if, instead of gathering the half-rotten olives which have fallen from 
the tree, they would pluck them at- the proper season. These indo- 
lent hidaloos had now learned that however abundant eold mieht be 
in the New World, some trouble was necessary to obtain it. From 
the time when this news was brought to them, the western world and 
its discoverer lost all their prestige. 

But the Admiral was not discouracred ; for, in his heart, he had 
counted only upon Isabella. Cold as was the missive which summoned 
him to Burgos, prepossessed against him as he expected to find the 
Two Kings, he presented himself before them with an easy and con- 
fident bearing, before which the false fabric of accusation heaped up 
against him rapidly fell to pieces. 

Instead of the somewhat random defence which he had prepared, 
he was asked only for an account of his second expedition, and his 
tale was interrupted only by the lively and intelligent questions of 
Isabella. 

King Ferdinand, of a drier and colder nature, made inquiries of 
him only as to one point, which Columbus had designedly passed 
over. His precaution aroused the hopes of his powerful enemies, 
who believed that on the question of gold, he would have little to 
say that was satisfactory. 

Columbus, in fact, made no answer in words ; he motioned to 
the Indian who bore the heavy chain of gold to come forward. 

The effect was dramatic, and the result upon the prince and his 
court instantaneous. 

Nor did the Admiral stop at this point ; while the Queen and 



i8o CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

her ladies examined, at his request, his freight of rare birds, exquisite 
uncut gems, pieces of amber, and the shells of pearl- bearing oysters, 
he displayed to the King huge masses of ore from the gold mine so 
opportunely discovered by him on the southern shore of St. Domingo. 

At this spectacle, and at the sharp glance cast by the monarch 
upon the enemies of Columbus, the Boyles and the Fonsecas saw 
that their time had not yet come. 

Columbus used his advantage with the greatest modesty ; he 
made no attempt to regain his lost popularity, whose inconstancy had 
robbed it of all value in his eyes. He was touched, however, by the 
marks of favor bestowed on him by the Queen, and by the private 
audiences to which she condescended to summon him, in company 
with the faithful Duchess of Moya, and with the illustrious Juana de 
la Torre, the nurse of the Infant, who became his intimate friend. In 
this august society, he consoled himself for the delays incident to the 
fitting out of a new expedition. 

We must add that Isabella, as a signal mark of her favor, had 
attached the two sons of Columbus to her person as pages, so that 
he might never approach her without seeing his children. But the 
sentiment which prompted this tender mother to so delicate an atten- 
tion was also to be the cause ot a delay which came near proving 
fatal to the hopes of the Admiral. 

The marriage of the Princess Margaret, her daughter, to the 
King of Portugal, ardently as she had desired it, had been the cause 
of an afflicting separation, and of a preoccupation which the Admiral 
could not overcome. Thus months were lost, and a gradual change 
came over the temper of the King, caused partly by the following 
occurrence. 

The commander of three ships just arrived from the colony 



VEXATIOUS DELAYS. i8i 

boasted that he had a cargo of bais of gold. This expression, con- 
strued Hterally, determined Ferdinand to mal<e use of the fund des- 
tined by the Queen for the Admiral's third expedition ; and after he 
had done so, it was discovered that the vessel's cargo consisted only 
of a number of Indians, brought over to be sold as slaves, and whose 
price was the gold of which the imaginative captain had written. 

We may imagine to what use the enemies of Columbus would 
put this provoking disappointment. Philanthropy was invoked against 
him, and although her name was far less powerful then than now, 
it was strong enough to increase the Admiral's difficulties. 

Those very hidalgos who had treated the natives of Cuba and 
St. Domingo with the most frightful cruelties; others who had negro 
or Moorish slaves in Castile; and others who had burned Jews to 
death over a slow fire, crossed themselves with horror at the bare 
thought of reducing to slavery or setting to work at the mines the 
innocent Caribs, poor cannibal Indians! 

And at the same time they grumbled incessantly against the new 
colony for not sending gold enough to the coffers of the metropolis. 

One would think it would have been easy to find substitutes for 
these unfortunate Indians at the m.ines ; but the New World, the 
Land of Gold, had fallen into such discredit, that Columbus could find 
no workmen but murderers, robbers and convicts under sentence for 
life ; and even these had to be tempted, in addition to their liberty, 
by the j^romise of all sorts of gratuities, and of a speedy return to 
Europe. 

The prospect of having these men to reduce to discipline was 
less discouraging to Columbus than the chicanery of the Council for 
the Indies, under the lead of Bishop Fonseca, the Administrator-Gen- 
eral. There was a time at which his patience seemed so to be giv- 



i82 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

ing way under an accumulation of indignation and disgust, that the 
Queen, in order to conciliate him, offered to constitute a large princi- 
pality in St. Domingo for him and his children forever; but Columbus 
declined this magnificent offer, fearing that it had been suggested by 
his rivals to destroy or to cripple his activity ; and roused by this 
idea, he took personal supervision of the smallest purchase made 
on account of the expedition. 

Thus did he prove that his will, so long accustomed to subdue 
the restive pride of others, could apply itself to the smallest as well 
as the greatest obstacles. 

For a moment, after a year of intermittent assistance from Isa- 
bella, his efforts seemed about to be crowned with success, when 
the unexpected death of the Infant, Don Juan, the beloved son of 
the Queen, cast her into a grief upon which no matters of business 
could be suffered to intrude. 

It was eight months after this unhappy event, when, under gloomy 
auspices, of which some idea may be formed by the above details, he 
weicfhed anchor in the harbor of San Lucar de Barrameda. 

To the last moment, he feared to see his expedition counter- 
manded, or at least delayed. Insulted and reviled by the common 
people, and threatened on board of his own ship by a Jewish agent 
of the Navy Bureau, he struck him to the deck and tossed him over- 
board. 

The wretch was largely rewarded by the chiefs of his faction, and 
was represented as a victim to the tyranny of Columbus. But the 
Admiral's impopularity both in the bureaux and in the synagogues 
could hardly be increased; and the worthless wretches who com- 
posed so large a portion of his crew were taught that their leader 
was not a man to tritle with. 



THE TIDAL WAVE. 183 

On the evening of the same day, Columbus thus began his jour- 
nal for the Two Kinsjs; 

"On Wednesday, May the thirtieth, (1498), I set sail, in the name 
of the Holy Trinity, from the city of San Lucar, still suffering from 
the effects of fatigue incurred in my former voyages. On my pre- 
vious return from the Indies, I had hoped to taste a little repose in 
Spain; but I found there only disappointment and pain." 

He who wrote these lines took with him from his adopted country 
not only the knowledge that he was misunderstood, but the additional 
burden of physical suffering. Yet he did not hesitate to choose a 
path over the ocean more hazardous than any he had yet traversed. 

By the time he had reached, almost on the equatorial line, the 
island of Trinidad and the immense delta formed by the mouths of 
the Orinoco, thus achieving the great discovery of a new continent, 
he had suffered all that hunger and thirst, sickness and the fury of 
the elements can inflict upon mortality. 

But these trials did not overcome his energy. Some of them 
were as new to him as to his companions ; but the sufferings of the 
crew caused him to pass lighdy over their infractions of discipline. 
Tormented by fever and by gout, half robbed of sight by ophthalmia, 
he dictated the following lines: "At an adv^anced hour of the night, 
seated upon the poop, I heard as it were a fearful roaring ; and as I 
sought to penetrate the darkness, I saw of a sudden to the south a 
mountain of water as high as the ship, rolling slowly towards us. 
Above it, with frightful din, rolled a foaming billow in which I made 
sure we would be engulfed. I shudder to this moment in remem- 
bering it. Happily, the billow and the mountainous surge passed 
beyond us, in the direction of the entrance to the channel, in which they 
whirled about for some moments and gradually diminished in volume." 



1 84 



CHRIS TOPHER COL UMD US. 



Yet Columbus, a few hours after this enormous mass of water 
had thus been engulfed in the channel, did not hesitate to explore it, 
and to give to its eastern entrance the name of the Dragon's Mouth. 




THE TIDAL WAVE. 



The explanation of the phenomenon he had beheld, as caused by 
the sudden swelling of one of the large rivers which empty into the 



THE SOUTHERN CONTTNENT. 185 

Gulf of Paria, was not yet known to him. But tlie taste of the water 
and numerous other indications soon revealed to him the existence 
of a continent ot which, untortunately, he could make no fitting ex- 
ploradon. 

He did not depart, however, without having accumulated a num- 
ber of valuable observations. Amonsf other thing-s, he discovered the 
existence of the equatorial current. We should be glad to believe 
that he noticed the elevation of the globe in the equatorial zone ; but 
the language which he employs on this subject is so vague that we 
cannot fully subscribe to the opinion of M. Roselly de Lorgues. 

But that conscientious author seems to us nearer the truth when 
he adds that Columbus believed in the existence of a great sea 
stretching to the south of the new continent. He believed, however, 
at the same time, that this continent was the prolongation of Asia. 
We have seen what a combination of circumstances, what a curious 
agreement of nomenclature had confirmed him in his opinion, which 
the appearance of the natives rendered still more plausible. 

The features of these men recalled the Hindoo, and even the 
Caucasian type, far more than those of the Lucayans or the Caribs. 
They wore turbans of a stuff as soft and brilliant as silk ; their gen- 
tle manners and their commodious habitations completed the delusion. 
Finally, an abundance of pearls, hitherto obtained only from Asia, was 
found on their coasts. Columbus even gave the name ot the Bay 
of Pearls to a body of water, which, by the wa)', never justified his 
appellation. But throughout that fertile countr\-, on the mainland as 
well as in Tabago, Grenada, Margarita and other newly discovered 
islands, men, women and children wore pearls set in necklaces and 
bracelets. At Cubagua, where he saw the hidians fishing for pearls, 
he bought more than three pounds' weight. 



i86 ClfRISTOrilER COLUMBUS. 

From this island he was compelled with great regret to set sail, 
on the eighteenth of August, for St. Domingo, in sight of whose 
shores he arrived after a pleasant voyage. 

He anchored in a creek, by the little island of Beata, and had 
just sent a private message to his brothers Diego and Bartholomew, 
when the latter arrived by sea, in the greatest haste. The Admiral 
augured no good from such a proceeding ; but his worst apprehen- 
sions were surpassed by the Adelantado's news. 

He had suspected that his brother, to whom, during his absence, 
he had delegated his authority, would have difficulty with the more 
turbulent portion of the colony. 

But he knew also his brother's aptitude for warfare and for 
administration ; an aptitude which the enemies of Bartholomew soon 
learned by his wise and vigorous measures. Hopeless of succeeding 
by mild means, he adopted sterner counsels; the velvet glove of the 
Admiral was transformed to a steel gaundet. 

This course would perhaps have succeeded in the long run, if he 
had had to deal with men like himself in mind and heart, as were 
some of the Piuropeans. He knew how favorable had been his 
brother's welcome at Court: and he hoped to detach from the faction 
hostile to the Admiral the perfidious but politic Roldan. As to the 
accomplices or rivals of this dangerous man, he had already taught 
them some severe lessons, when a new element of disorder came in 
to complicate the situation. 

Before his last departure from St Domingo, Columbus had left 
all the Indian population of the island in a state of willing or unwill- 
ing submission ; with the exception only of the tribes who had re- 
mained neutral, over whom reigned the noble and powerful cacique 
Behechio, the brother-in-law of Caonabo. The capture of the latter 




BARTHOLOMEW COLUMBUS 



THE VISIT TO ANA CO ANA. 189 

caused a general commotion through this island, and a partial uprising 
against the Spaniards, which Bartholomew, thanks to the persistent 
neutrality of Behechio, easily put down. A year had passed without 
any change in the Indian chief's attitude, which was neither warlike 
nor friendly. 

This independent position was fraught with danger to the Span- 
ish authority. At any minute, the chief of the warlike tribes of 
Xaragua could offer either of the opposing factions in the colony the 
means of obtaining the mastery. In fact, it was believed at Isabella 
that Roldan was in secret negotiation with him with this design, and 
that an all-powerful influence had been brought to bear on the mind 
of the cacique to induce him to consent. 

At this news, Bartholomew's hrst idea was to stamp out this in- 
cendiary spark. His second thought was to pay a visit to the beau- 
titul and puissant Anacoana, This visit he had neglected for more 
than a year ; an omission which might have led to serious conse- 
quences. 

Bartholomew was unquestionably a great man. He was, perhaps, 
inferior to his brother only in the happy faculty of taking the initia- 
tive, and in that feminine element which acts as a leaven to genius, 
and mineles erace with strenath. 

Neither on his arrival at St. Domingo, nor up to this time, had 
he shown a comprehension of the womanly nature of Anacoana, and 
the importance of propitiating her Whatever advice his brother 
may have given him on this subject, the capture and death of Cao- 
nabo had seemeci to him to open a gulf between the widow of the 
monarch and all Europeans ; and this gulf, with his moderate esti- 
mate of Anacoana's power, he had never attempted to bridge. 

Fortunately, he recognized his mistake before it was too late ; 



I90 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

and, politic even in his gallantry, he set off with a large and well- 
armed body of troops, so as to give to his visit that warlike pomp 
so impressive to women even of countries more civilized than was 
Xaragua. 

Anacoana was exceedingly pleased by this homage. This extra- 
ordinary woman, who had understood and sympathized with Columbus, 
but whom the capture of Caonabo had long alienated from him, had 
not the same motives for keeping aloof from Bartholomew. The wel- 
fare of her tribe, exposed to the destructive assaults of the Caribs, 
was an inducement to her to reestablish through the Adelantado her 
friendly relations with the Admiral. She had gone to spend the 
years of widowhood with her brother Behechio, according to the eti- 
quette of her race and station ; but we may suppose that she had by 
this time found consolation for the loss of a Carib husband who had 
compelled her to make war upon the Spaniards. 

At a later time, her clear intelligence had enabled her to fore- 
cast, in all the divisions among the Europeans, the ultimate triumph 
of the rightiul authority; and the slight encouragement she had given 
the rebels was a gentle hint to Bartholomew that he was neglecting 
her. 

The same feminine adroitness caused her at the first to remain 
passive, when her brother, who misinterpreted the object ol the 
Spanish military display, brought together forty thousand warriors to 
meet Bartholomew. 

Soon, however, she was satisfied to convert these preparations 
into a means of returning courtesy for courtesy; and, inducing her 
brother to dismiss his troops, she thought only of giving the Ade- 
lantado a reception worth)- of him and of herself. 

Perhaps our readers will ask how an Indian queen could sue- 



THE FESTIVAL OF FLOWERS. 191 

ceed in carrying out such an extensive programme. I will not send 
them to the huge volumes of Father Dutertre, in which they would 
find a detailed description for which I have no space ; I will not 
even recall to them the fact that the festivals of civilized peoples, 
with their masks, their necklaces, ear-rings and bracelets, and disguises 
of every kind, are transparent imitations of the dress, the dances 
and the games of savages. I will only say to them: You know the 
word enguirlaiider (engarland) a Franco-Russian barbarism expressing 
the action of enticing a stranger. This barbarous metaphor was liter- 
ally realized by Anacoana in her reception of Bartholomew. 

The splendid flora of the Antilles was laid under a heavy con- 
tribution for the festival. In a sort of dramatic representation, the 
music and the verses of which were of her own composition, the 
Queen appeared surrounded by her nymphs, in a dress composed 
only of flowers, but so tastefully arranged as to put to shame the 
best artists of Seville or Burgos. 

These childlike allurements were employed by Anacoana only in 
subordination to a loyal and noble policy. Before Bartholomew took 
leave of Behechio and his lovely sister, he had conceived for this 
New World Isabella the greatest confidence and esteem. 

He had no fear, henceforward, of any attack from the region 
of Xaragua, and could turn his attention to the Vega Real, where 
Guarionex was in open rebellion. The misconduct of the Spaniards 
had converted this prince from a friend and ally to a bitter enemy. 

The cacique was conquered and made prisoner, but restored to 
his subjects, at their earnest entreaties Two chiefs lesser in rank 
were punished by death; as was also the perpetrator of the principal 
outrage which had driven Guarionex into rebellion. But the brilliant 
success of Bartholomew had stirred Roldan's bitterest jealousy. He 



192 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

turned against his benefactor the arms which had been given him, 
together with his post as Chief Judge of the island ; and when the 
Adelantado returned to Xaragua to receive the tribute and the fealty 
of Behechio, Roldan declared himself the Iriend of the Indians 
oppressed by Don Bartholomew, and gathered around him, under 
this pretext, their real and only tyrants. 

At this moment arrived from Spain news most unfavorable to 
the Admiral. He was represented as in disgrace at Court; and, as 
a proof of this, it was alleged that the nomination of Bartholomew to 
the dignity of Adelantado had not been officially confirmed. 

This was the condition of things when Bartholomew, informed of 
his brother's return, came to him to relate the bad news and to 
restore the government into his hands. 

The Admiral's first measure was publicly to confirm all his bro- 
ther's acts, and to condemn the course of Roldan ; he wrote also to 
the disobedient Chief Judge a letter whose length precludes quota- 
tion ; but I may say that it is incomprehensible how a man of 
honor could have resisted such an appeal. 

But Roldan was only a man of cunning. He was little moved 
by the letter; but certain considerations suggested to him by the 
wise and faithful Carvajal were more potent with him. Carvajal had 
been represented to Columbus as a traitor; but the Admiral's generous 
heart never lost confidence in an officer until he had convicted him 
of foul dealing. The event justified his reliance upon Carvajal, as it 
had justified his reliance upon Guacanagari. 

The Spanish officer knew how to manage Roldan, who only half 
believed in the Atlmiral's disgrace, and who finally suggested to 
Carvajal a sort of compromise, which Columbus, seeing the difficulties 
which surrounded him, was prudent enough to accept. , 



THE LETTER FROM THE TWO KINGS. 193 

He then devoted to the duties of administration all the time 
which was not spent in repressing turbulence and revolt; exhibiting 
in everything an intelligence, an activity, a good nature, a mixture ol 
kindness and firmness which would have conciliated any other men 
than the Spanish scum with whom he was almost entirely surrounded. 

Before many months, he had won over Roldan to the side of 
order, and had repressed by his assistance various new outbreaks of 
turbulence. Forts and important constructions were rising under his 
orders. He had written to the Oueen a letter, accompanied by a 
detailed narrative such as. she loved, and by presents such as she had 
always graciously received. It was his opinion that the dues of the 
Crown collectable in the island, which were now, thanks to him, about 
sixty millions of francs yearly, would soon reach a sum ten times as 
great. This belief was strictly verified. 

The reward of so much zeal and wisdom was that one day, as he 
was superintending the enlargement of Fort Conception, he received 
the following letter: 

"Don Christopher Columbus, our Admiral of the Ocean Sea, we 
have commanded the bearer of these presents. Commander Francisco 
de Bobadilla, to say unto you certain things with which we have 
charged him. We pray you to put therein full faith and credence, 
and to act in consequence." 

This letter was signed by the King and the Queen, and gave 
notice to the Admiral that Bobadilla, who had already installed him- 
self in the governor's residence, cited him, Christopher Columbus, 
before a commission composed of the most disaffected and hostile 
elements in Isabella. 

Columbus was then in good condition to resist such a mandate, 
which he might well consider as extorted by surprise. Guarionex, 



194 



CHR IS TO rilF.R CO L UMB (IS. 



Behechio, Guacanagari and all the Intlian tribes, upon a word from 
him or a sign from Anacoana, would have come to his help against 
the new governor. The latter fully expected an armed resistance, 
and was greatly surprised when the Admiral presented himself before 
him, in the full consciousness of innocence and of good desert. The 
first act of his unworthy successor was to put him in irons. 

A pretended trial followed this disgraceful act ; and after a 
month of rigorous captivity, Christopher Columbus — the discoverer ot 
the New World, — separated from his two bnnhers, who were sent 
by another ship, sailed for Spain in fetters ! 




COLUMBUS IN FETTERS. 



k. 








ii-=^i^is 



mm 



.t: r?7imi^^.^^mv^ 














JEnL-r i-.lBL£R is. 



HOOTED BY THE MOB. 



CHAPTER X. 

The race of the Bobadillas is the same at all times and in all 
places. Its folly and lack of foresight equals its baseness and cruelty. 

He who put Christopher Columbus in chains doubdess never imagined 

197 



198 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

that, by a treatment so barbarous, he added to the glory of his victim 
a dramatic contrast well calculated to restore him to popularity. Still 
less did he suspect that the shackles with which he loaded the dis- 
coverer of the New World would chain himself forever to the hero's 
pedestal. 

The smallest amount of common sense would have told him that 
all unnecessary harshness carries with it its own condemnation, and 
that a respectful intimation of the necessity of his return to Spain 
would have found Columbus as submissive as did the shameful fetters 
with which even his enemies blushed to see him loaded. 

But anger and fear had so blinded this agent of bureaucratic 
spite that, when he heard the hooting widi which the rabble hailed 
the departure of Columbus and his brothers in chains, he imagined 
that he had accomplished a great deed. 

He was a Christian, and had heard the story of the Cross. When 
he saw, borne aloft in triumph, the Admiral's cook, the only man who 
could be found, in the absence of the hangman, base enough to rivet 
the irons on his master and benefactor, was he not reminded of 
Barabbas ? 

Scarcely, however, had the Gorda weighed anchor than a strong 
reaction in favor of the illustrious captive thrilled through the island. 
The few cood men were horror-stricken ; the rest were bewildered 
and vaguely appalled. The cruelty of Bobadilla was universally con- 
demned. 

Meanwhile, on board of the ship, the captain of the caravel, witli 
a worthy pilot, named Andreas Martin, and the officer who had been 
obliged by his duty to arrest the Admiral, came to him and begged 
him to let them take off his irons. 

Columbus could not but feel this mark of respectful sympathy; 



PROUD RESIGNATION. 199 

but he refused the proffered alleviation as if he foresaw what a 
brightness these fetters would one day add to his glory. We know 
that, in after times, he wished to be buried with them. 

It is not improbable, when we remember the sketch executed b\- 
Columbus which was mentioned in the first part of our story, that 
he anticipated the effect which would be produced by these chains 
alike upon his contemporaries and upon posterity. Another great 
Italian, in aftertimes, a poet not less careful of his future glory, 
similarly preferred a perpetual voluntary exile to a late return to 
his ungrateful country. 

The analogy will not hold in all respects. Our hero's character 
was nobler than that of Dante Alighieri. Only the lance of Achilles 
could cure the wounds it had made; and the royal authority, which 
had inflicted such an injury on Columbus, could alone repair that 
injury. 

So faithful a subject did not think himself justified in eluding 
any punishment, however unjust, which the authorized representative 
of his Sovereigns should pronounce against him. 

His conduct seems also partly due to religious motives, to a 
feeling more solemn than care for his own glory, or even than the 
obedience due to kings. This ardent believer, who had, like his 
patron Saint Christopher, carried the true God over the waters, 
rejoiced still to bear, in the ignoble chains with which they had 
loaded his old age, the image of his crucified Lord. 

This feeling animates his whole letter to his friend, the good 
Juana de la Torre, nurse of the late prince Don Juan. This random 
vindication of his conduct, which he drew up during the voyage, 
expresses not merely the proud resignation to his fate and the abso- 
lute confidence in God which lay at the foundation of his character: 



200 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

as a document destined to meet the eye of the Queen, it antici- 
pates and refutes objection, not indeed in consecutive order, but with 
a breadth and justness of vision of which the following passage will 
give some idea : 

"I was not to be considered as an ordinary Governor, exercising 
his office in a town or province regularly administered, and in the 
enjoyment of laws which can be executed to the letter. I have a 
right to ask that I be judged as a captain, sent from Spain to the 
Indies to conquer a numerous and warlike people, differing from our 
own in religion and in manners, separated from each other by ranges 
of mountains, and without fixed points of reunion ; for in the Indies 
there are neither towns nor political treaties." To this demand that 
his administration should be judged from the only true point of view 
Columbus might have added the fact that his system of punishment 
with regard to the natives was far from equalling in severity that 
which he found prevailing among the tribes themselves. For instance, 
to cite a single example, instead of the frightful torture of empale- 
ment, with which every petty theft was punished among them, he 
had substituted the branding used in similar cases in Spain, where it 
entailed a moral degradation the very notion of which was incom 
prehensible to savages. What mattered to them the good opinion 
of their conquerors, of men whom they had come to look upon as 
a horde of merciless plunderers? 

As to the reduction of these savages to a state of temporary 
slavery, what other means of working the soil ami the mines was 
left to him, between Spanish indolence on the one hand, and the 
insatiable greed of the exchequer on the other? 

For the rest, while he had not the ideas of our time about 
slavery, Columbus personally held it in such dislike that he never 



POPULAR SYMPATHY. 201 

owned a single slave; while, as he might have remarked, some of 
his foremost accusers owned more than two hundred. 

Finally, if the gift of prophecy had not deserted him, the great 
discoverer, who alone of the invaders had known how to make himself 
beloved among the natives, might have closed the debate by predict- 
ing that all his measures of colonial administration and police, so 
strongly blamed in 1500, would in 15 10, with some changes in the 
direction of severity, constitute the legal code of these very Indies ; 
and that by 1864 the most civilized and anti-slavery nations of Europe 
would almost have effected the extermination of the nadves of the 
New World; to say nothing of Oceanica. And this they would have 
done in consequence of the harsh but inevitable law which offers 
to the inferior race only the alternative of assimilation or of death. 

But, happily, Columbus had no need to justify his conduct; once 
again, it was only his enemies whom he had to defend. Nor did he 
fail them; for most of them owed the fulfilment of the contracts 
made with them only to his charitable intercession. 

His second departure from Cadiz had been almost unnodced ; 
but deep and universal emodon greeted his return to the same post 
in a condidon so unworthy of his fame. The chains he wore did not 
resound in vain on the stones of the old pier. Their echoes rolled 
through the heart of the nation, and reached the conscience of Isabella 
on her throne. From motives less delicate and more interested, Fer- 
dinand seemed equally moved. He declared that his intendons had 
been misunderstood and his instrucdons outrageously overstepped. 
Fonseca himself confessed that his agent had gone too far, and the 
Navy Bureau affixed to Bobadilla's name the ominous epithet ovei-- 
zealous. 

A year later, from these same registers, both epithet and name 



202 



CHR ] S TO PHER COL L Win i'S. 



were effaced. Bobadilla had been recalled to Spain, and had perished 
at sea, with a crew composed of the Admiral's bitterest enemies. 

Miracles abound in the life of Columbus. It was a poem in 
action, where events unfolded themselves with a sequence and dra- 
matic contrast unequalled in the compositions of art. 




THE WELCOME OF THE QUEEN. 



On receipt of the letter to Donna Juana de la Torre, a special 
courier had been dispatched to Columbus ; he was awaited with pity 
and admiration. 

He set off for Grenada, when the court was sitting-; but, with 
the fine tact of a man who understood his extreme and delicate 
situation, he made the journey and appeared in the presence of the 
Two Kings not, as before, in the humble dress of a Franciscan, but 
as a great lord, an Admiral and Viceroy ; with the brilliant dress and 



HE SAILS AGAIN FROM CADIZ. 203 

assured bearing which befitted his rank, his dignity, his services and 
his character. 

The king was the first to receive him. Little as he may have 
liked the bearing of Columbus, he let no sign of his feeling escape him. 

But Isabella, when she saw the noble old man who had undergone 
such disgraceful treatment, was moved even to tears. She declared 
that all explanation must be preceded by the dismissal of Bobadilla and 
the confirmation of the Admiral in all his titles. 

The moral reparation was complete ; but there were obstacles 
to any immediate return to St. Domingo which Columbus well under- 
stood. He made no objection to the appointment of a temporary 
Governor; a Governor whom King Ferdinand in his heart designed 
to be a permanent officer; and on the ninth of May, 1502, he set off 
from Cadiz with four caravels and a hundred and fifty men, not as 
ruler of the Western Indies, but on another voyage of discovery. 
Nothing can be a better proof of his disinterestedness and his desire 
for active service in the cause of God and his fellow-men. 

How strangely does time change our point of view! Columbus 
setting out modestly from Cadiz, with his four small ships, seems to 
posterity a greater man than when, but a short time before, he was 
deploying a great squadron in the same waters, amid the huzzas and 
the blessings of a nation. 

But habit had long deadened in Columbus the apprehension of 
these contrasts. He regarded his actions from the stand-point of a 
future generation ; and the deed for which he was now preparing bore 
to his eyes the same character of greatness in which it appears to 
posterity. 

He intended to resume the exploration of the mainland, discovered 
by him on the first of August, 1498, and to reach either a strait 



204 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

whose existence he suspected in the neigliborhood of Honduras, or an 
open sea, over which he could accomplish the circumnavigation of the 
globe. 

With this object in view, he tooic with him, not the troop of 
thieves and famished gold-seekers who encumbered his previous voy- 
age, but sailors chosen, for the most part, for their courage and intel- 
ligence ; and at the head of this picked company, his gallant brother 
Bartholomew, who commanded one of the three caravels. 

On board of the chief galley, which he commanded in person, 
was his son and future historian Ferdinand. 

We shall soon see for what a rough discipline he had torn this 
boy of thirteen from the soft and luxurious court of Spain ; but who- 
soever desires to read the details of their common misfortunes on 
this unhappy voyage must seek them elsewhere. A full relation of 
Columbus' fourth voyage would not only lead us beyond the limits 
of our story, but would also transgress its object, by encroaching upon 
the history of the New World, when our object is only to relate its 
discovery, and to illustrate the character of the discoverer. 

We shall give, therefore, only a summary of this grand but 
mournful expedition, which will bring into their proper connection and 
date the fragments of a letter written by the Admiral. 

After the customary stop at the Canary Islands, the little squad- 
ron, with constantly favoring weather, arrived on the fifteenth of June 
at Martinique, and on the following days at Dominica, Santa Cruz 
and Porto Rico. At this point one of the caravels proved totally 
unfit for the voyage, and the Admiral, to make the necessary alter- 
ations in her, or to exchange her for one better suited to his purpose, 
steered for San Domingo, and, castinof anchor in siorht of Isabella, 
asked permission of the authorities to put in for repairs. 



THE PREDICTION FULFILLED. 205 

This permission would have been readily extended to the meanest 
pilot. It was refused to Columbus, the founder of that very city 
whose hospitality was denied him. 

He took a characteristic revenge. He sent word to Ovando, 
the new Governor, that a fearful tempest was approaching, and 
entreated him not to allow the departure of a squadron on the eve 
of sailing for Spain. This squadron had on board the deposed 
Bobadilla and a number of discontented hidalgos, who were, notwith- 
standing their complaints, taking back great sums in gold to the 
mother country. 

The Admiral's prediction was contemned. He set sail for a little 
harbor which he called Port Concealment ; and saw the homeward- 
bound squadron set out in weather, apparently, as fair as could be 
wished. 

Two days afterwards, it was shipwrecked ; only one vessel escaped, 
and that the weakest. It is a curious circumstance that this vessel 
had on board all the little fortune of Columbus. 

The Admiral did not learn this fact until long afterwards ; he 
was even ignorant of the shipwreck, having enough to do to manage 
his own little fleet, which, in its insufficient shelter, had suffered 
heavily from the violence of the storm; and all this within a few miles 
of the broad harbor of Isabella ! " What man," wrote he to the Two 
Kings, "what man, from Job himself to the present day, was ever 
more unfortunate than I ! In the very ports which I had discovered 
at the peril of my life, I was now refused a shelter from the death 
which menaced my friends, ni)- brother, my young son and myself" 

His paternal love was destined to undergo still harsher proof: 
but amid all mishaps, his heart rejoiced to find in his child the soul 
of a man. 



2o6 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

He was swept away towards the southern coast of Cuba by the 
equatorial current which he had discovered on his preceding voyao-e, 
and then was beaten about by a succession of storms. For twenty- 
four days his eyes saw neither the sun nor the stars. His ships 
were gaping open, his sails hanging in tatters ; cordage, rigging, ship's 
boats all gone ; his best sailors, sick and disheartened, had taken to 
their prayers ; the boldest had lost heart. " But most grievous of 
all to me," he wrote to the Two Kings, " was the thought of my son, 
whose extreme youth was ill-fitted to bear such an extremity. Doubt- 
less it was God, and none other, who bestowed on him such marvel- 
lous endurance. Of himself alone, he kept up the courage and 
patience of the sailors in their hard labors. He might have been a 
pilot grown aid amid storms ; a conduct most incredible, which 
softened the torments of my situation ' 

"And this is not all," he adds a litde further on; "a thought 
which draias my heart up through my body is that I have left in Spain 
my youngest son Don Diego, poor and bereft of his father; but I 
hope that he will find in your Highnesses just and grateful princes, 
who will return to him with usury all of which your service has 
deprived him." 

While he was pouring forth these touching complaints, Columbus 
was off the coast of the mainland, opposite Cape Honduras. A 
month afterwards, the fourteenth of September, he had explored the 
neighboring coasts as far as Cape Gracias a Dios, and two days later 
cast anchor near the mouth of a river, which the loss of a boat's crew 
caused him to name the River of Disaster. 

The valuable information which he here received concerning the 
mineral wealth of the country was carefully detailed in his letters; 
but he made no delay in prosecuting the object of his voyage. In 



THE CELESTIAL VOICE. 207 

his search for a strait, then non-existent, but which will yet be created 
by human hands, he surveyed in detail all the coasts of Costa Rica, 
of Veragua, of the Mosquitoes and of the Isthmus of Panama. 

This important scientific exploration was accomplished only in the 
teeth of human and elemental foes. In this harbor, to which, from 
its small size, he had given the name of El Rctrcte (The Cabinet) he 
had been forced to fire upon the Indians, who had been roused to 
fury by the misconduct of the crews; and soon after, the pressure 
brought to bear upon him by his men compelled him to return to a 
point on the sea-coast of Veragua. The proximity of gold mines 
almost induced him to establish a settlement in this reeion ; but the 
opposition of his comrades, the hostility of the natives and the per- 
petual recurrence of bad weather forced him to abandon this project; 
and on the first of May, 1502, after having come upon the entrance 
to the Gulf of Darien — his last discovery — he reluctantly set sail for 
St. Domingo. 

We shall now pass rapidly over a succession of calamities which 
would, if narrated in detail, but oppress the mind with a doleful 
monotony. It was only after repeated shocks of misfortune that 
Columbus thus poured forth his lamentations: "The prey of constant 
storms, tormented by fever and overcome by fatigue, all hope of 
deliverance had left my heart. Yet I armed myself with all my 
courage ; 1 went up to the highest place, calling in vain upon the 
four winds of heaven for help. I saw your Majesties' captains of 
war weep around me. Exhausted, I fell into a deep sleep: In my 
slumber I heard a compassionate voice which thus addressed me : 

"Thou fool, why art thou so slow to believe thy God, the God 
of the universe, and to do Him service? What more hath He done 
for Moses or for David than for thee ? Did He not care for thee 



2o8 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

tenderly in thy youth, and when thou wast old enough to work His 
will, did He not make the earth resound with thy name? Did He 
not give thee the Indies, that rich portion of the globe ? did He not 
empower thee to bestow it upon others^ according to thy pleasure ? 
=^= * * Chains which none could break barred the gates of the 
Ocean ; He put the keys thereof in thy hands. Thy power was 
recognized in the furthest lands, thy glory proclaimed by all Chris- 
tians * * * Turn therefore to Him and acknowledge thy fault; 
for His mercy is infinite. Thine old age shall not prevent His bounty; 
He reserveth for thee a most glorious inheritance. 

"Was not Abraham an lumdred years old when Isaac was born 
unto him? Vain is the help for which thou callest ; but the Lord 
keepeth His promise unto His servants: nor doth He, when He hath 
received a service, profess that His instructions have not been fol- 
lowed, and crive a new meaning- to His orders. '•' * * His words 
are never ambiguous; all that He hath promised He giveth with 
usury. This is what He hath done for thee; but show now, it thou 
canst, what recompense thou hast from others for thy life of danger 
and of hardship." 

"And I, though cast down by woe, heard clearly all this speech; 
but having no strength to answer, I could but weep in humbleness 
over my faults. Then the voice said, Take courage and hope ; thy 
labours shall be graven on marble." 

These passages, which for sublimity have been compared by good 
judges to the Scriptures, occur in the famous letter called, for more 
than one reason, litera rarissima. It was sent by the hands of 
savages ; and arrived at its destination only by a miracle 

When Columbus wrote it, he had been forced, after thirteen 
months of hardship and misfortune, to run his two remaining ships 



IN EXTREMITY. 



209 



aground on the shore of Jamaica. The brave Diego Mendez and 
a Genoese of the noble house of the Fieschi had set off in an Indian 




THE ECLIPSE 



canoe, to ask for help from St. Domingo ; but no news had been 
received of them, and they were given up for lost 

Such a situation it seemed hardly possible to aggravate : yet at 



2IO CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

this moment his crew broke out into a revolt in which his life was 
greatly endangered, and then abandoned him almost in a body, and 
spread themselves through the interior of the island, living by the 
strong hand ; while the Indians, tired of supplying the foreigners' 
needs, undertook to reduce them to starvation. 

The near approach of this danger was met by Columbus with 
his old readiness of invention. He remembered that an eclipse of 
the moon was close at hand ; and predicted to the rebellious savages 
that, in punishment for their behaviour, the moon would cease to 
give them light. 

We can readily imagine the scene that followed. The disk of 
the moon was gradually darkened: the Indians gave themselves up 
for lost, and brought all they had to propitiate the terrible white man, 
who allowed himself to be persuaded by their entreaties, and com 
manded the moon to restore to them her light. 

Another piece of good fortune was the receipt from St. Domingo 
of a little cask of wine and a side of bacon, with the promise that a 
vessel should soon be sent to his succor. 

This was all, for the time, which could be obtained from that 
Ovando who had refused to Columbus an entry into the port ot 
Isabella. 

The promised ship came duly to their help ; but the politic 
Ovando, as we shall see, had lost no time in putting himself into 
condition to receive the Admiral and his brother in a safe and 
befitting manner. 

Our readers will remember the visits of Don Bartholomew to 
Anacoana, and the lively sympathy which e.xisted between that princess 
and the Columbus family ; and they may conclude that the jealous 
Roldan had disclosed this alliance to Ovando, who at first attached 




THE DEATH OF COLUMBUS 



THE FATE OF ANA CO AN A. 213 

but little importance to it ; but the approach of the brothers and the 
necessity of receiving them with courtesy inspired the crafty Gov- 
ernor with an undefined fear of some conspiracy, which he must 
anticipate and prevent. 

With this object, and unwilling to keep such guests as the Ad- 
miral and the Adelantado lono^er in waitine, he went with his soldiers 
to Xaragua, with the avowed intention of entertaining Anacoana by 
a tournament. She was sitting as a spectator, with all her attend- 
ants and the principal chiefs of the country, and the display had but 
just begun, when the knights and soldiery of Ovando, with the Gov- 
ernor himself at their head, threw themselves upon the unarmed 
Inuians, and began a frightful butchery. Eighty-four of the caciques 
were burned alive; and nothing but ashes remained on the spot 
where rose, the day before, the smiling capital of Xaragua. 

The noble Queen, after the farce of a trial conducted under 
the forms of law, was ignominiously hanged in the public square of 
Isabella. 

Such was the end of the Flower of Gold, of the beautiful Queen 
Anacoana, called the Friend of the Spaniards. 

While these horrors were taking place in the New World, 
another Queen, afflicted by the death of all she held dear, was draw- 
ing near her end ; and with her were to be buried the last hopes 
of Columbus. 

When he returned to Spain, the health of Isabella was so far 
gone that she could render him no assistance either in his projects, 
or in securing the recognition of his rights. 

He himself was stopped at Seville by an acute attack of the 
rheumatism from which he had suffered for many years, and which 
was now so aggravated by age and by his recent hardships as to 



214 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

keep him prisoner on the pallet of an inn ; while his ardent imagi- 
nation showed him his enemies at the King's ear, with no good 
angel by to plead for him. 

Yet Isabella was still alive, and wished to the last to help her 
venerable servant. A messenger from the Admiral, the faithful Diego 
Mendez, was admitted to her presence. From her bed of suffering 
she listened with a favoring ear to the story of Columbus, she learned 
what had been done in her colonies by the Fonsecas, the Bobadillas 
and the Ovandos ; she wept over the woful end of the noble and 
charming Anacoana ; she promised that her death should be avenged, 
and swore that the murderer should have at her hands "a place he 
had never yet filled." 

The Queen's countenance was the last consolation which Colum- 
bus was to receive on this side of the grave. His health did not 
permit him to avail himself of her favor, in pleading his cause before 
the Kinsf, until his noble friend could no longer intercede for him 
on earth. 

Isabella breathed her last on the twenty sixth of November, 1504, 
and from the day of this irreparable loss, Columbus received from 
Ferdinand only dilatory promises, empty marks of honor, and the 
ostentatious consideration accorded to his old age and feeble condition. 

His mind was as vigorous as ever; but hardship and cold, 
deprivation of necessaries, and above all the constant deception and 
disappointment of his hopes, hastened the end of a life which could 
do humanity no further service. 

Eighteen months were yet to elapse before, in the dispensation 
of Providence outrunning the slowness of human justice, the dis- 
coverer of the New World was to yield up his spirit to the Creator 
of all things 



THE DEATH OF COLUMBUS. 215 

Lying in a poor Inn at Seville, on May the twentieth, 1 506, 
Columbus felt that his last hour was approaching. He asked for 
the last sacraments, which he wished lo receive, as his mistress 
Isabella had received them, in the dress of the order of St. Francis. 

It was on Ascension Day that his spirit was set free. At noon, 
after some hours of suffering, he uttered aloud the last words of the 
dying Saviour on the cross: 

"//^ manus hias, Doinine, commeiido spiriium meum!' — "Into Thy 
hands, O Lord, I commend my soul." 

And, with these words, he expired. 



Columbus disappeared from this world almost as obscurely as 
he entered it ; and the principal cause of this was in the immense 
revolution brought about by himself Such was the impulse which 
he gave to voyages of discovery that, in less than forty-five years, 
the coast-line of North and South America was tolerably well known ; 
while, in the interior, great empires had been conquered. It was 
natural that, in the midst of such a movement, the rumor of Colum- 
bus' death should have been stifled, both in the Old and the New 
World, by the resonance of his mighty deeds. Seven years later, 
the poets were still celebrating the great discoverer as a living man ; 
even in Spain, many were first informed of his death by the splendid 
though tardy obsequies offered to his memory by King Ferdinand. 

Buried at first in the Franciscan convent at Valladolid, the body 
of Columbus was transported to Seville, and laid, with a pompous 



21 6 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 

funeral seivice, in the Carthusian monastery of Santa Maria, where 
it remained till 1 536. It was then reclaimed by the Capital of St. 
Domingo, and was laid in the cathedral of that city. There it re- 
mained till 1795, when St. Domingo was conquered from Spain by 
the French. The dispossessed Spaniards carried the precious remains 
away with them to Cuba. Perhaps they have not yet made their 
last journey. 

The posterity of Columbus, during the short period of its exist- 
enee, proved itself not unworthy of its great ancestor. His eyes were 
hardly closed when his son Diego, on whom he had entailed his 
estate, was put in possession of some small part of his father's pro- 
perty. Soon afterwards, he married Donna Maria de Toledo, the 
favorite niece of the Duke of Alba, and, thanks to this almost regal 
alliance, was at length sent to replace the traitor Ovando as governor 
of St. Domingo. There, under the guidance of his uncles Bartholo- 
mew and Diego, he carried out his father's designs, and rendered to 
his sovereign services repaid by similar ingratitude. 

Like his father, he was recalled to Spain to give an account 
of his acts; like him, he was found innocent; like him, he ended 
his days in the mother country, disgusted with the ingratitude of 
Kings. 

A few years before his death died also, in St. Domingo, Bar- 
tholomew and Diego, the Admiral's brothers. Bartholomew had been 
created Governor of the Island of Mona. They left no posterity ; 
nor did Ferdinand Columbus, who died in 1593, leaving behintl him 
a distinguished reputation as an historian and geographer, and the 
most authentic biography of his father. 

Diego Columbus, the Admiral's eldest son, had by Donna Maria 
de Toledo five children, the eldest of whom, Don Luiz, obtained in 



A AT ILLUSTRIOUS POSTERITY. 217 

1537 the title of Duke of Veragua and Marquis of Jamaica, with a 
grant of twenty-five leagues square of land. 

The legitimate male line of Christopher Columbus expired in 
157S, in the person of the fourth Admiral to whom descended that 
illustrious name; but the title of Duke of Veragua is still borne with 
distinction by a collateral branch of the Columbus family. 




